In August 2012, Johnson & Johnson made public its intention to offer a settlement to the first three lawsuits ready to go to trial concerning its DePuy ASR XL acetabular hip prosthetic system.

DePuy Orthopedics Inc. is a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary specializing in the manufacturing of prosthetic medical devices.

The initial DePuy ASR hip implant settlement was $600,000 and was split among three plaintiffs so that each received approximately $200,000 each.

DePuy ASR Hip Implant Settlement Offered Due to Side Effects

The DePuy ASR hip implant settlement was offered in response to the plaintiff’s allegations in three separate lawsuits that the popular hip prosthetic failed within an unexpectedly short period of time.

The failure supposedly came with pain, swelling, and bone damage leading to the necessity of having to have the unit removed and replaced with a new device.

Metal-on-metal hip replacement implants like the DePuy ASR XL acetabular system and the DePuy Pinnacle acetabular system have been implicated in reports of complications, leading to an enormous number of pending lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson.

These pending lawsuits number close to 8,000. One of the biggest reported problems is a condition known as metallosis—a blood poisoning of chromium and cobalt caused by the shedding of metal debris from the constant friction of the metal femoral head inside the metal acetabular cup.

Metallosis can lead to several secondary but dramatic health issues such as cancer and degenerative heart disease. There have also been non-malignant tumors development around the implantation site of the metal prosthetics which seem to contribute to unretractable pain and swelling.

Another adverse effect noted has been loss of bone tissue and strength leading to dislocation and fracture. In extreme cases, some tissue death around the prosthetic has been discovered.

A Recall Sets the Stage for the DePuy ASR Implant Settlement

In late summer of 2010, Johnson & Johnson set the stage for the later DePuy ASR hip implant settlement decision by initiating a voluntary global recall of the device. The company was advised following a report from a United Kingdom registry that approximately 13 percent of the ASR implants failed early, subjecting recipients to necessary hip revision surgeries. The voluntary recall affected close to 100,000 prosthetic units worldwide, with roughly a third of those distributed within the U.S.

The DePuy ASR hip implant settlement has continued beyond the initial settlement in August 2012, but it is purportedly a complicated process of application that requires legal guidance.

According to the official settlement website, the settlement has been implemented in phases according to when the claimant had to have hip revision surgery to remove and replace their ASR implants.

The first phase was for revision patients having this critical surgery before Aug. 31, 2013. The second phase was for revision patients having the surgery during a time window between Aug. 31, 2013 and Jan. 31, 2015.

This phase has been extended to include revision patients having surgery between Feb. 1, 2015 and Feb. 15, 2017.