Six plaintiffs are filing a bundled complaint in a DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit claiming that the defective nature of their hip replacement devices caused them severe injuries.

The three plaintiff couples have filed this DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit together because they all experienced similar symptoms from their DePuy metal hip replacements.

Plaintiffs Leslie S., Carl S. and Barbara Y. were each implanted with the Pinnacle hip replacement system, according to this DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit. Each of these patients says they experienced premature loosening of their metal hip replacements and each was forced to undergo revision surgery.

Revision surgery is costly and is often much more complicated and risky than the original replacement surgeries. According to this DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit, “[a] revision surgery is a painful procedure during which some or all of the Pinnacle Hip components are explanted from the patient’s body and replaced with new components.”

The plaintiffs believe that the defendants, DePuy and Johnson & Johnson, knew or should have known that the Pinnacle hip replacement device was “defective and presented abnormally high risks of early failure” and that it shed metal debris into surrounding tissue causing a condition known as metallosis.

DePuy and Johnson & Johnson, according to this DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit, continued to sell and market the device, despite knowing of the risks.

The plaintiffs are holding the defendants liable for failing to warn both patients and the medical community of the “unnecessary and unacceptable risks” inherent to the Pinnacle hip replacement system. DePuy is also accused of unlawfully hiding the dangerous problems associated with this device.

Many previously made and marketed hip implant systems are not designed to have metal touching metal. However, the Pinnacle device is a metal-on-metal hip implant system.

The ball-in-socket design of a natural human hip is mimicked by the Pinnacle devices’ femoral head and metal acetabular cup.

This metal acetabular cup, the “socket” portion of the device, also has a metal acetabular liner. This means that every time the patient walks or moves, the metal of the femoral head (the top of the femur bone) comes into contact with the metal of the acetabular liner.

The plaintiffs in this DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit allege that this Pinnacle device was not sufficiently tested before it went to market and claim that it was never actually approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as being safe for public use.

In fact, this DePuy metal hip implant lawsuit claims, instead of making sure this device was safe via clinical trials, DePuy went on to market its Pinnacle device without conducting any clinical trials.

They allege the Pinnacle hip is prone to a high failure rate and other severe complications. Those with Pinnacle hip problems may experience swelling, inflammation and severe discomfort. Additionally, metal-on-metal hip implant patients also may experience a higher risk of both cancer and non-cancerous tumors, degenerative heart disease cardiomyopathy and premature failure of the device.

This DePuy Metal Hip Implant Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-02023-K in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.