Lawsuits are stacking up from IVC filter patients who allege they suffered complications due to faulty design and inadequate warning on the part of the manufacturers.

Generally, the plaintiffs allege they suffered complications from their IVC filter, a device implanted in the inferior vena cava to prevent pulmonary embolisms.

Plaintiffs allege these devices are defectively designed, putting the patient at risk for many different kinds of IVC filter complications. Many also claim the manufacturers of these devices failed to properly warn doctors and patients about the risks of IVC filter complications.

Some recently filed IVC filter lawsuits make allegations that are typical among these claimants:

• Plaintiff Ava L. of Missouri says that her Bard IVC filter fractured after implantation, creating a loose fragment that lodged in her back. She blames the fracture on allegedly defective design and inadequate clinical testing.

• Plaintiff Mary D. of Georgia says that a strut from her Bard IVC filter broke off and punctured her heart, necessitating open heart surgery in January 2014. The rest of the filter was removed, except for one strut that was never found and is presumably still inside her body, creating the risk of further damage.

• Plaintiff Larry J. claims his Cook IVC filter broke in 2014, and the resulting pieces migrated to his heart. He says this complication caused him to pass out while driving. Three separate surgeries were required to remove the remaining pieces, he says.

• Plaintiff Alec C. of Mississippi says his Bard IVC filter shifted out of its proper position, turning almost perpendicular to its original position and perforating his inferior vena cava. Alec says the new position prevents the filter from being safely removed, and the stuck filter will eventually fracture and embolize.

What Is An IVC Filter?

The devices at the heart of these allegations are small metal filters designed to be implanted in the patient’s inferior vena cava, the large vein that returns blood to the heart. When functioning properly, these devices trap blood clots that might otherwise travel to the lungs and cause a pulmonary embolism.

IVC filters are intended to be an alternative for patients who are predisposed to developing dangerous blood clots but for whom anticoagulant medication is not a workable option.

IVC Filter Litigation

The above IVC filter lawsuits will likely be litigated as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, along with dozens of other similar claims. An MDL is a consolidation of several individual claims that share common factual issues, transferred to a single court to make the pretrial process more efficient.

Two different MDLs are now pending over Cook and Bard IVC filters, respectively. The Cook MDL has been going on in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana since October 2014. There are currently almost 200 individual IVC filter lawsuits in the Cook MDL.

More recently, the Bard MDL began when 22 separate Bard IVC filter lawsuits were transferred to the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in August 2015.