Since the mass legal action over metal-on-metal hips has been organized, some plaintiffs have begun filing their lawsuits directly into the district court managing the various metal-on-metal hip lawsuits.

Metal-on-metal hip implants are a type of artificial hip joint with metal interfacing surfaces. Hip implants are designed to replace hip joints that have been worn out from age, injury, or disease.

Artificial hip joints typically mimic the structure of a human hip, so they have a socket on the hip end, and a metal ball that can move in the socket to allow the leg to move.

In older artificial hips, the moving surfaces of the joint are typically made of polymer and ceramic, or even ivory in very old artificial hips. But in the early 2000s, a number of medical companies debuted metal-on-metal hips with both metal socket and joint. Since these metal-on-metal hip joints were based on older designs, their manufacturers were able to take advantage of the FDA’s controversial 501(k) program and avoid extensive testing.

The FDA’s 501(k) program works great, except when it doesn’t. Since medical devices require FDA approval, it can be costly to develop new medical devices. To work around this, the FDA allows medical companies who develop new medical devices that are “substantially similar” to existing technology to skip most of the required testing, on the premise that these devices probably won’t have new problems. But in the case of metal-on-metal hip implants, it appears that the 501(k) program allowed a potentially dangerous device to slip through the cracks.

According to metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuits, these types of hip replacements carry risks not seen in older types of hip implants.

Allegedly, the motion of metal against metal can grind off microscopic flecks. While the metal in metal-on-metal hip implants is normally safe for use in the human body, when ground into microscopic grains, they may be able to dissolve into the blood more readily, promoting inflammation, pseudotumor formation and metallosis. Additionally, it has been alleged that metal-on-metal hip implants may fail more readily.

So many metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuits have been filed that the judicial system has resorted to a process called a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, to organize the thousands of cases that have been filed. MDLs allow the court system to group similar suits together to streamline the legal system. In this case, metal-on-metal hip lawsuits have been organized through a district court in Indiana.

In a recent case, a South Carolina plaintiff received a metal-on-metal hip implant made by Biomet in 2006. More specifically, he was implanted with the Biomet M2A, a model of metal-on-metal hip implant that was not recalled, despite a 2013 warning by the FDA that metal-on-metal hip implants may be more dangerous than other hip implants.

Most manufacturers of metal-on-metal hip implants recalled their models, but Biomet continued selling the M2A.

Though the Biomet hip lawsuit MDL is still ongoing, Biomet has already agreed to a $56 million settlement to resolve 2,000 claims over the M2A to date, meaning a base award of $200,000 to most patients who needed follow-up surgery on their metal-on-metal hip joints.

In this case, the South Carolinian plaintiff chose to file the lawsuit directly in the Indiana District Court instead of filing it in South Carolina and having it coordinated into the MDL later.