The first bellwether trial over the Durom Cup hip replacement, manufactured by Zimmer Holdings Inc., was a win for the company after an Illinois jury ruled unanimously that the company did not knowingly market a faulty device.

Plaintiff John P., 61, had the Durom Cup implanted in 2008 but later had it surgically removed. He alleged that the device resisted bone growth and loosened, resulting in hip pain.

There are some 350 lawsuits pending against Zimmer, so many that a federal panel consolidated them in multidistrict litigation (MDL) in New Jersey. At trial, Zimmer disputed the alleged defects with the Durom Cup, arguing that the company provided sufficient warnings at the time they were given for doctors to properly implant the device.

Zimmer’s lawyers postulated that an unrelated infection following surgery prevented the plaintiff’s bone from growing onto the implant.

Zimmer temporarily withdrew the Durom Cup from the U.S. market in 2008 to update its warnings and surgical instructions. Approximately 12,000 people reportedly already had the device surgically implanted when it was taken off the market.

In bellwether trials, a judge selects a small group of plaintiffs to take to trial cases with similar allegations. Bellwether trials are helpful in expediting court cases by reducing duplicative discovery or conflicting court rulings and aid in the scheduling of witnesses and experts.

They are intended be an indicator of how future juries may rule on similar evidence and testimony in specific litigation. The outcomes of bellwether cases are not binding but provide the judge and the parties on both sides sufficient information to determine whether future cases should be tried or settled.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a warning that the Durom Cup also carried another side effect, the release of leaking metallic ions into the bloodstream. Other hip replacement manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy Orthopaedics, Smith & Nephew, DePuy, Wright Medical Technology Inc. and Biomet, have come under similar criticism.

Stryker is named in some 4,000 pending product liability lawsuits filed in both state and federal courts alleging problems with the Stryker Rejuvenate or ABG II hip replacement systems. Both were recalled in 2012 after reports that the hip replacements quickly corroded and failed.

Hip implant side effects include a dislocated hip, leaking of toxic substances such as chromium or cobalt, cancer, degenerative heart disease, loss of bone strength, resulting in bone fractures, tissue death on areas surrounding the implant, and non-cancerous tumors around the hip implant.

Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle some 8,000 lawsuits filed by patients who had risky revision surgery to replace the company’s metal-on-metal hip implants, which failed at higher rates than traditional hip implants. DePuy, a division of Johnson & Johnson, has recalled that hip implant. More patients are expected to undergo revision surgery for the implants in the future.