The Ethicon vaginal mesh bellwether trial set to begin early December has been postponed until March 2015, and U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin has scheduled a joint conference for all vaginal mesh lawsuits in the multidistrict litigation in late January 2015.

This announcement follows a pretrial conference held last week regarding the third bellwether trial concerning the Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuit filed by plaintiff Dianne B.

The Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuit, which will be the second lawsuit to reach a jury involving a product manufactured by Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiary Ethicon in the federal court system, is one of a group of vaginal mesh lawsuits initially selected for an early trial date to help the parties determine how juries may respond to certain evidence or testimony that could be repeated throughout the litigation.

However, no reason for the three-month postponement was given in the order.

These bellwether trials will not affect other vaginal mesh lawsuits, but may influence negotiations to reach vaginal mesh settlement agreements that could avoid the need for thousands of individual trials nationwide.

In another order issued on Dec. 2, Judge Goodwin scheduled a joint status conference for the vaginal mesh MDLs on Jan. 29, 2015.

Vaginal Mesh Lawsuits

The upcoming Ethicon vaginal mesh trial and outcome will be monitored closely by many vaginal mesh attorneys and law firms involved in vaginal mesh lawsuits, as there are currently more than 50,000 vaginal mesh lawsuits pending throughout the federal court system, which have all been centralized before Judge Goodwin in West Virginia federal court.

Vaginal mesh lawsuits involving several different manufacturers of vaginal mesh implants, vaginal mesh devices, and bladder sling products have been separated into seven MDLs, or multidistrict litigations. In addition to the Ethicon vaginal mesh lawsuits, Judge Goodwin is currently presiding over the following vaginal mesh lawsuits:

• 12,500 Bard Avaulta
• 18,000 American Medical Systems (AMS)
• 12,000 Boston Scientific
• 1,500 Coloplast
• 200 Cook Medical
• 75 Neomedic

Each of the vaginal mesh lawsuits involves similar allegations that women experienced painful complications following the use of transvaginal mesh for repair of pelvic organ prolapse (POP) or female stress urinary incontinence (SUI), often resulting in the need for surgical removal of the mesh after it eroded through the vagina.