DePuy Orthopaedics faces a new DePuy ASR lawsuit in Ohio federal court filed by a woman alleging she suffered severe adverse effects and complications following the implantation of the metal-on-metal hip implant.

Plaintiff Dawn M. has filed the DePuy ASR lawsuit to join a growing multidistrict litigation (MDL) against the company and demands a jury trial.

According to the DePuy ASR lawsuit, Dawn is a resident and citizen of Fargo, North Dakota. She claims damages including injury to herself, economic loss and loss of services.

Dawn says that she became implanted with the DePuy ASR hip implant on her right hip on May 14, 2008, at Sanford South University Hospital. However, following the surgery, she allegedly suffered injuries including “pain, elevated cobalt and chromium ions, difficulty ambulating, muscle loss, tissue destruction and incurred medical bills.”

Due to these complications, she says that had the DePuy ASR hip implant removed on March 21, 2018. Dawn contends that she only knew that the device she had been implanted with was defective because of excessive levels of chromium and cobalt ions that were found in her bloodstream following a blood draw. It was then that she was advised of the blood work and excessive levels, she claims.

The DePuy ASR lawsuit was filed on multiple counts including negligence, negligence per se, defective design, manufacturing defect, failure to warn, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty, fraudulent misrepresentation, fraudulent concealment, fraud and deceit, among others.

Overview: DePuy ASR Lawsuit

Thousands of lawsuits have been filed over severe adverse effects and complications associated with DePuy Orthopaedics’s ASR hip replacement device, a subsidiary company of Johnson & Johnson, which has also been the subject of a massive hip implant settlement.

Adverse side effects and complications associated with the metal-on-metal hip replacement device have included:

• Cobalt poisoning
• Pseudotumors or non-cancerous tumors surrounding the hip implant
• Metal poisoning or metallosis that includes the presence of chromium or cobalt particles in the bloodstream or surrounding tissue
• Death of tissue
• The result of bone fractures from bone strength loss or structure
• Cancer
• Cardiomyopathy or degenerative heart disease
• Hip dislocation
• Metal hip implant failure resulting in early hip replacement surgery

On Aug. 24, 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced the company’s voluntary recall of many ASR hip implant devices. Associated with the recall were nearly 93,000 affected ASR hip replacement devices worldwide and 37,000 defective devices that had to be recalled in the U.S.

Reasons for the company’s voluntary recall were linked to data relased from the UK joint registry finding that almost 13 percent of DePuy ASR hip implants require revision surgery because of associated adverse side effects and complications including metallosis, immobility, dislocation of the device and infection.

The DePuy ASR Lawsuit is Case No. 1:18-dp-20051-JJH, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division. The DePuy Lawsuit is in re: DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. ASR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 1:10-md-2197, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division.