A Texas woman has filed a DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit against the makers of her hip replacement system claiming that DePuy is responsible for her injuries and damages.

Plaintiff Lorena M. was implanted with a DePuy Pinnacle device on June 15, 2015, for the replacement of her left hip joint. According to her DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit, Lorena claims she suffered injuries and damages and will continue to suffer them in the future because of her Pinnacle hip device.

Lorena is seeking monetary damages for “past, present, and future physical and mental pain and suffering; past, present and future medical, hospital, rehabilitative and pharmaceutical expenses, lost wages and other related damages.”

Lorena asserts in her DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit that all of her injuries were caused by DePuy’s defective design and the “unreasonably dangerous character” of the DePuy Pinnacle hip replacement she received.  She claims that if she had known about the defective nature of the DePuy hip replacement and the potential early failure rate, along with all of the potential complications and risks associated with the device, she never would have consented to have the DePuy Pinnacle implanted.

According to the DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit, on Sept. 15, 2015, just a few months after she received her hip replacement, Lorena began to suspect that there was a causal link between the defective Pinnacle hip replacement device and the injuries she was suffering.

Lorena asserts that she could not have made an informed decision prior to her surgery because of DePuy’s “failure to properly warn her and her physicians about the Pinnacle Device’s defective and faulty nature and their failure to issue any recall or take any other proactive action to date with respect to the injuries being caused to patients that have been implanted with a Pinnacle Device.”

The Pinnacle device manufactured by DePuy is a metal-on-metal hip replacement that is composed of cobalt and chromium, among other metals. The femoral head rotates within an acetabular cup that is made of titanium with a cobalt and chromium liner.  These metals rub on one another when the joint is rotated during normal movement. Accord to patient and doctor reports, this can shed metal debris into the surrounding tissue.

The metal debris can cause metallosis, a metal poisoning of the surrounding tissue and blood, higher risk of cancers, degenerative heart disease, non-cancerous tumors, pain, swelling, inflammation and premature failure of the device.

Often, patients must endure hip revision surgery, a surgery that is more complicated and invasive than the original implant surgery.  Additionally, patients who have metal-on-metal hip implants often experience loosening of the hip device which can lead to implant failure and premature hip revision surgery.

Lorena’s DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit alleges that the implantation of the DePuy Pinnacle device “results in the nearly immediate systemic release of high levels of toxic metal cobalt-chromium ions into every hip implant patient’s tissue and bloodstream.”

This DePuy Pinnacle lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-02605-K in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division.