A woman from Texas is adding her hip implant lawsuit to the multidistrict litigation now pending over the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant system.

Plaintiff Connie B. of Texas is suing DePuy Orthopaedics, its parent company Johnson & Johnson, and their related companies for injuries caused by their Pinnacle hip implant. DePuy manufactures the Pinnacle hip implant system, an artificial hip joint used in hip replacement surgery.

The Pinnacle implant system features a metal femoral stem and head that fits into a titanium acetabulum cup, with one of several possible liners between the two. One such liner, under the brand name Ultamet, is made of cobalt and chromium. The Ultamet liner results in metal-on-metal contact between the surfaces inside the joint.

Connie received a Pinnacle system with an Ultamet metal liner during her hip implant surgery in July 2005. She now alleges the metal-on-metal hip implant shed large amounts of cobalt and chromium metal particles into the surrounding tissue, causing “severe discomfort, inflammation, and other symptoms.” Blood tests revealed she had elevated levels of cobalt and chromium.

Connie now attributes her hip replacement complications to the defective design and “unreasonably dangerous character” of the Pinnacle system. She says the defendants did not conduct clinical trials on the Pinnacle system prior to putting it on the market in the early 2000s. She says that the defendants concealed information about the Pinnacle system’s problems, and that if Connie had been aware of those problems, she would not have accepted a Pinnacle system hip implant.

Connie’s hip implant lawsuit raises claims for strict liability for manufacturing defects, strict liability for failure to warn, negligence, negligence for a design defect, fraud, fraudulent concealment or suppression of material facts, negligent misrepresentation, and breach of both implied and express warranty.

For her remedy, Connie is asking the court for an injunction that would require the defendants to provide the recipients of Pinnacle system implants with full information about the problems associated with that system. She also seeks an award of damages to compensate for non-economic harm such as pain and suffering and emotional distress, economic losses including past and future medical bills, and punitive damages, as well as reimbursement of her attorneys’ fees and costs of the litigation.

Her hip implant lawsuit also reserves spots for defendants “Does 1 – 20,” representing any other potential defendants that she may discover in the course of the litigation.

Connie’s claim is part of the hip implant multidistrict litigation, or MDL, now pending in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. When, as with DePuy hip implant lawsuits and other products liability claims, a large number of plaintiffs file separate lawsuits that share many common issues, the federal court system sometimes consolidates all such claims into an MDL in a single court and under a single judge so that the common issues can be decided consistently and efficiently.

Her Hip Implant Lawsuit is Case No. 3:15-cv-02193-K, part of MDL No. 2244, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.