The California Superior Court ruled that Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Ethicon Inc. will not be allowed a new trial to contest the $5.7 million jury verdict awarded to a California plaintiff who alleges she was injured by Ethicon’s vaginal mesh product.

Pelvic mesh products (also known as vaginal mesh, transvaginal mesh systems, or vaginal slings) are medical devices made from porous synthetic materials that are implanted in the body to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary incontinence in women.

However, according to numerous vaginal mesh lawsuits, many types of pelvic mesh and vaginal mesh products have caused thousands of women to experience painful and long-lasting vaginal mesh side effects.

Vaginal Mesh Lawsuit Decision

On April 27, Superior Court Judge Lorna H. Brumfield denied the company’s motion for a new trial regarding an Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuit that ended in early March with a ruling in favor of plaintiff Coleen P. According to the vaginal mesh ruling, the jury awarded Coleen $5 million in punitive damages and $700,000 in compensatory damages for her injuries allegedly caused by the TVT Abbrevo pelvic mesh device.

In their motion petitioning for a new Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuit trial, Ethicon argued that the company was entitled to another trial because the plaintiff had refuted the company’s assertion that the Ethicon TVT line of vaginal mesh products were considered “the gold standard” and are still on the medical device market.

However, Judge Brumfield rejected the medical device manufacturer’s argument. “By attributing longevity to the ‘TVTTM line’ of products as a whole, and selecting three devices from the TVT family to discuss (while omitting the troubled history of the de-commercialized TVT-Secur), Ethicon created a skewed image of the history of the TVT products. It was not error to allow plaintiff to rebut false impressions by introducing evidence of a decommercialized TVT product,” the judge wrote.

The judge’s ruling states that while the TVT Secur vaginal mesh product is a different design from the TVT Abbrevo vaginal mesh system, both products were made of the same pelvic mesh and there existed evidence of similar vaginal mesh complications with both Ethicon designs.

Judge Brumfield also rejected Ethicon’s argument that the company deserved a new vaginal mesh lawsuit trial based on the $5 million punitive damages award, finding that the awarded amount was not grossly excessive, especially when seen in light of Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson’s financial condition, which has an estimated net worth of $27 billion, or when compared to the awarded compensatory damages.

Vaginal Mesh Litigation

Coleen is not the only woman who has filed a vaginal mesh lawsuit against medical device manufacturers such as Ethicon, claiming personal injury from their transvaginal mesh product. According to reports, tens of thousands of women have sued vaginal mesh manufacturers concerning vaginal mesh complications, alleging the pelvic mesh caused a number of injuries when these medical devices were supposed to treat stress urinary incontinence and pelvic organ prolapse.

Additionally, just after the court ruled in Coleen’s Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuit, Ethicon agreed to a vaginal mesh settlement concerning a vaginal mesh bellwether trial. This case was part of a larger vaginal mesh multidistrict litigation. The details of this Ethicon settlement have not yet be released to the public.

The Ethicon Vaginal Mesh Lawsuit is Case No. S-1500-cv-279123, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Kern.