Currently, there is a massive litigation movement against the major vaginal mesh manufacturers in the United States, after women reportedly suffered debilitating side effects. These women allege that soon after implanting the device, they had to undergo revision surgery to resolve the injuries.

Each of these women had opted to have the vaginal mesh implanted in order to treat either their pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or stress urinary incontinence (SUI). Unfortunately, these women reported developing different problems soon after having the vaginal mesh inserted. Their issues included infection, urinary incontinence, mesh erosion, organ prolapse, and device failure.

These numerous complications spawned numerous product-liability lawsuits against the vaginal mesh manufacturing companies, alleging they failed in providing adequate safety precautions. Each of these women claim that there were no special instructions provided to the surgeons, and that the companies deliberately concealed this information to increase the market value of their vaginal mesh products.

According to legal resources, vaginal mesh lawsuits have been slowly making their way through both federal and state court systems for the past four or five years. They primarily consist of personal injury allegations, which is now estimated to be at 100,000 vaginal mesh lawsuits. However, legal experts complain that the progression on this litigation movement has been very slow, to the point where a district judge had stepped in.

In one of the most recent legal updates, Medtronic’s Covidien subsidiary had agreed to settle more than 11,000 vaginal mesh lawsuits. U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin, the judge overseeing the multidistrict litigation (MDL) consolidated trials held in West Virginia, stated that Covidien had entered a Confidential Master Settlement Agreement to settle any claims related to their pelvic orthopedic products.

Judge Goodwin is also overseeing seven different federal MDLs consisting of more than 80,00 vaginal mesh and bladder sling lawsuits, each established for different vaginal mesh manufacturers, including C.R. Bard, Ethicon, Boston Scientific, American Medical Systems (AMS), Coloplast, Cook Medical, and Neomedic.

Overview of Ongoing Vaginal Mesh Litigation

When lawsuits are consolidated into an MDL, it is for several purposes and is ultimately meant to streamline the courtroom trial processes. With so many similar lawsuits under one judge, conflicting rulings could be avoided, and enormous amounts of legal resources are saved. Along with a faster and easier process to resolve the case, the formation of an MDL is also meant to serve to the further convenience of both parties. Currently, there have been several bellwether vaginal mesh trials, with Judge Goodwin encouraging the parties to agree to settlement negotiations with each other, in order to avoid the need for tens of thousands of individual courtroom trials.

While the outcome of a bellwether trial does not decide the fate of the other vaginal mesh lawsuits, it may influence the jury’s opinion on future cases. If a settlement is not reached for an MDL, these cases are typically refiled back into the district court they were originally filed in, to await individual trial; this means that if these manufacturers do not enter settlement with the plaintiffs, there could be tens of thousands of vaginal mesh lawsuits in the future.

So far, these early trials have resulted in multimillion dollar damage awards for the women who filed these lawsuits after experiencing vaginal mesh injuries.

In another major move in the vaginal mesh litigation, Judge Goodwin has ordered two large waves of Bard cases to be prepared for trial. A third of these cases were proposed for some time in 2015, including 298 cases involving the vaginal mesh systems from Bard. Johnson & Johnson’s Ethicon subsidiary has also been ordered to prepare 26 different vaginal mesh lawsuits for trial, which is set to begin in November 2015.

Currently, Ethicon has only faced two trials involving its vaginal mesh product, with the most recent victory awarded to the plaintiff in the amount of $3.27 million, in September 2014. AMS is the only major vaginal mesh manufacturer to settle claims involving, their vaginal mesh products; the company agreed to pay $1.6 billion to resolve nearly all 20,000 vaginal mesh lawsuits, filed against the company. Lastly, Boston Scientific had been forced to award $73.4 million to resolve several product-liability suits, from women who complained of mesh complications.