In a new products liability lawsuit, a woman from Ohio claims Atrium’s C-Qur hernia mesh left her with severe hernia mesh injuries.

Plaintiff Willie C. says that when she underwent hernia repair surgery in 2010, she was implanted with a C-Qur hernia mesh made by defendant Atrium Medical Corp. Later, and for several years after the surgery, she noticed a painful lump in her abdomen around where the mesh had been implanted.

Five years after her initial surgery, Willie says, her hernia had recurred, requiring further surgical repair. When her doctors began this more recent surgery, they discovered a considerable amount of adhesions between the C-Qur hernia mesh and her small intestine.

Adhesions are growths of fibrous scar tissue connecting tissues and organs that aren’t normally connected. They may form as a response to tissue disturbances like surgery, infection or trauma.

Willie says her surgeons had to remove two feet of her small intestine in an attempt to repair her hernia mesh injuries.

She now claims her injuries were direct results of defects in the C-Qur hernia mesh. She accuses Atrium and its parent companies Maquet and Getinge Group of defective design and manufacture.

She also claims the companies failed to adequately warn her about the risk of hernia mesh injuries associated with the C-Qur implant.

Multiple Plaintiffs Claim Hernia Mesh Injuries

Willie’s claim will be consolidated with an existing group of hernia mesh lawsuits that have already been combined into a single multidistrict litigation, or MDL, in a federal court in New Hampshire.

This MDL was created in December 2016 by the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, in anticipation of a large number of claims over complications related to the Atrium C-Qur hernia mesh.

By combining several similar claims into a single action, the Panel hopes to make pretrial processing run more efficiently and avoid inconsistent judicial decisions on pretrial issues.

Future C-Qur hernia mesh lawsuits like Willie’s that are filed in other courts will be transferred to the MDL for pretrial processing.

Generally, the plaintiffs in these actions allege that after they were implanted with a C-Qur hernia mesh, they suffered complications far beyond what they were led to expect from the information provided by the product’s manufacturer.

Plaintiffs report suffering from a long list of complications including pain, infection, inflammation, allergic reactions, nerve damage, rejection of the implant, scar tissue formation, and erosion of the tissue surrounding the implant.

Some claim the implants simply failed, allowing their hernias to recur.

The plaintiffs are challenging Atrium’s use of a special coating on the outside of the hernia mesh. This “Omega 3” coating was purportedly intended to keep the surrounding tissues from adhering to the mesh. But plaintiffs argue the coating is exactly what caused their excessive complications.

Willie’s Hernia Mesh Injuries Lawsuit is Case No. 2:17-cv-00060 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The Atrium C-Qur Hernia Mesh MDL is In re: Atrium Medical Corp. C-Qur Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2753, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire.