On June 29, 2017, a group of 31 plaintiffs filed an Essure mass tort lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Generally speaking, mass torts differ in one respect from class action lawsuits in that the plaintiffs are each named as parties, rather than included in a single plaintiff Class.

In this case, however, plaintiffs from 15 different states are included. The plaintiffs come from California, Ohio, New Jersey, Iowa, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, Tennessee, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Kansas. Ohio has the highest number of complainants in this Essure mass tort lawsuit coming from that state.

These 31 plaintiffs bring complaints against Essure’s developer, maker and distributor, Bayer Corp. and its affiliated companies. They are holding the following counts against the medical device and pharmaceutical giant: Counts One and Two – Negligent Training and Negligence Risk Management; Count Three – Breach of Express Warranty; Counts Four and Five – Negligent Misrepresentation and Negligence, Failure to Warn; Count Six – Loss of Consortium.

Essure Mass Tort Lawsuit Issues

The Essure mass tort is based upon injuries allegedly sustained by 23 of the named plaintiffs who had Essure coils implanted by their physicians into their fallopian tubes. The remaining eight plaintiffs are identified as spouses claiming loss of consortium or intimacy as a result of these injuries.

Essure coils are inserted into the fallopian tubes by a qualified physician via the vagina and cervix. The procedure has been considered an attractive alternative to permanent sterilization via “tube tying” because it can be done inside of 10 minutes and does not require incisions or general anesthesia.

The coils, once placed, encourage the growth of scar tissue which holds the coils and blocks them off.

The women involved in this Essure mass tort all complain that the device migrated within the pelvic cavity or fractured, punctured internal organs, and caused a host of other related problems.

The 23 female plaintiffs claim none of them was adequately warned that this was even a remote possibility when they made the choice for this method of sterilization.

According to the legal documentation of this Essure mass tort, Essure coils were granted conditional premarket approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which came with certain stipulations. If these standards were not met, then the conditional approval was to be rescinded.

It was discovered by the FDA in May of 2013 that 16,047 entries were logged on an internal spreadsheet by Bayer but not shared with the FDA. The plaintiffs believe that this withholding of information should have invalidated the market approval of Essure coils, and that invalidation would have protected consumers from the device’s known failures.

The plaintiffs are requesting a trial by jury, a favorable judgement on their behalf including costs of suit, attorney’s fees, medical bills, and any future medical monitoring including use of diagnostic tools and tests to determine health status.

They are also requesting compensatory rewards to help with loss of earning power and any reduction in earning ability now and into the future as well as punitive damages to discourage such fraudulent behavior in the future.

The Essure Mass Tort Lawsuit is Case No 2:17-cv-02915-JP in the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania.