A couple from Kentucky has brought a claim over complications suffered following implantation of a Biomet hip implant system.

Plaintiff Andrea P. says she underwent replacement surgery for her right hip in March 2010, receiving an M2a Magnum metal-on-metal hip implant system made by Biomet Orthopedics.

After the surgery, she allegedly began to suffer severe pain in that hip. In February 2015, Andrea underwent hip revision surgery to remove the implant.

The surgeon performing that procedure noted that Andrea had signs of metallosis and elevated levels of chromium and cobalt ions in her body, according to the hip lawsuit.

Andrea claims that the trouble her new hip implant gave her is attributable to defects in the M2a Magnum system. She is now suing Biomet Orthopedics LLC and its related companies, all of whom are allegedly involved in the manufacture and sale of the M2a Magnum hip implant system.

Shawn P., Andrea’s husband, is bringing his own claim for loss of consortium, a type of claim that the spouse of an injured person can bring to seek compensation for the effect of the injury on their marital relationship.

According to Andrea’s hip lawsuit, the M2a Magnum sheds fragments of cobalt and chromium into the patient’s body. She alleges these metal particles stimulate the body to reject the implant, resulting in symptoms of “pain, looseness, dislocation, and squeaking and popping sounds.”

She also claims the body’s reaction to the metal often results in accumulation of fluid and the death of surrounding tissue.

Biomet Hip Implant Complications Reported

Andrea says that within the first few years that the M2a Magnum was on the market, Biomet received hundreds of complaints about associated hip implant complications.

She says the FDA has also received more than 350 complaints to date about the M2a Magnum. These complaints, put Biomet on notice that the M2a system was defective and was due for a recall, according to the plaintiffs.

Andrea says that despite these reports of hip implant complications, Biomet representatives made direct assurances to surgeons that the M2a Magnum was safe to use and that it was in fact the best implant on the market. She claims Biomet actively concealed its knowledge of these complications.

According to Andrea, Biomet was motivated to conceal any defects in its products by the prospect of incoming investment capital. In 2007 a private equity firm bought Biomet for $10 billion, she says.

Then in 2014, the company was sold again for over $13 billion. Andrea believes Biomet purposely suppressed the reports of problems with the M2a Magnum to avoid devaluing the company at the times of these sales.

This hip implant lawsuit is part of the multidistrict litigation, or MDL, now being conducted in a federal court in Indiana. This MDL is a consolidation of many individual hip implant lawsuits against Biomet, joined in the interest of conducting pretrial procedures more efficiently. Plaintiffs in the Biomet MDL are generally raising claims similar to those brought by Andrea and Shawn.

Andrea and Shawn’s Hip Implant Lawsuit is Case No. 3:15-CV-517 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division. The Biomet MDL is pending in that court under the title In re: Biomet M2a Magnum Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2391.