An Oklahoma plaintiff was awarded $2.5 million in a metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuit after the jury found the DePuy ASR metal hip implant product to be defective and unreasonably dangerous.

Andrea S. had filed the metal hip implant lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson alleging she suffered severe complications from using their metal-on-metal hip implants. She received the metal hip implants for both hips in October 2006 and February 2007, but she eventually had to undergo revision hip replacement surgery to remove the implants in 2011 and 2012 after it was discovered that she was suffering from metallosis, or metal poisoning.

Metallosis is a condition where the patient’s blood metal ion levels are elevated due to an outside influence — in this case, the alleged cause was the DePuy metal hip implants.

As of now, more than 12,000 plaintiffs with similar metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuits have been filed throughout the United States after the metal hip implants were recalled in 2010 due to the device prematurely failing due to the dangerous side effects, which include:

• Severe joint pain
• Implant failure
• Implant loosening
• Local tissue necrosis (or tissue death)
• Deterioration of the bone around the implant
• Formation of cysts or pseudotumors
• Osteolysis

Each of the metal hip replacement lawsuits allege that DePuy designed and sold a dangerous product that had certain design defects that put the patients at extreme risk. When the ball-and-socket joints of the metal-on-metal hip implants interacted, metal ions were shed directly into the patient’s bloodstream that ultimately resulted in the devices failing, as well as other nasty outcomes, the metal hip implant lawsuit alleges.

However, for Andrea’s metal-on-metal hip implant lawsuit, DePuy actually tried to argue that it had been due to a bone fracture the plaintiff suffered that caused the corrosion to occur, and that the device was not defective.

The jury disagreed and charged the company with negligence and failure to warn, ultimately resulting in the large compensation reward for Andrea.

Overview of DePut Metal Hip Implant Lawsuits

This metal hip implant lawsuit is another drop in the bucket for DePuy, after recently settling thousands of similar metal hip replacement lawsuits for more than $3 billion. However, some plaintiffs have opted to pursue their claims individually rather than accept their portion of the settlement amount.

After the agreement was first announced in 2013, DePuy had reportedly agreed to settle additional claims that did not originally qualify. While this settlement did resolve a number of metal hip implant lawsuits, thousands remain unresolved that are mostly from plaintiffs who filed legal action before experiencing any problems related to the device — they filed their metal hip replacement lawsuits after hearing the recall announcements.

Plaintiffs who had initially dismissed their metal on metal hip implant lawsuits will be allowed to refile in the future, as long as they bring their new lawsuits within one year after they undergo the hip implant revision surgery, or within six months of being told that the revision surgery would be too risky.