The manufacturers of a cardiac heater-cooler model that has been associated with deadly bacterial infections have asked that the U.S. heater cooler lawsuits pending against them be joined into a single multidistrict litigation, or MDL.

Manufacturer LivaNova has recently requested that the pending heater cooler lawsuits be consolidated into an MDL in the state of South Carolina.

An MDL or a multidistrict litigation joins together similar cases to save money and time and to make sure that discovery isn’t unnecessarily duplicated. An MDL also helps to keep rulings similar as well.

Last year, however, LivaNova argued that these same heater cooler lawsuits should not be consolidated into an MDL. But now, they have changed their minds.

LivaNova’s lead attorney explained to Law360 that when the company originally asked that the lawsuits not be consolidated, there were only 15 heater cooler lawsuits pending. Now, there are many more than that.

A LivaNova attorney said that they were wrong originally. The number of cases pending accusing LivaNova of being responsible for the bacterial infections of dozens of patients has now risen to 80. Forty-two of those heater cooler lawsuits are in federal court.

Ten heater cooler lawsuits are currently pending in South Carolina, so a South Carolina venue makes the most sense, according to the attorney for LivaNova.

LivaNova manufactures the medical device in question. These heater cooler lawsuits center around patients acquiring a bacterial infection that they claim came from their exposure to a medical device made by LivaNova.

A cardiac heater cooler device is used in cardiac surgeries to keep a patient’s body temperature at what it supposed to be. Water in the device heats or cools the blood, but water never comes into direct contact with the patient.

What has been discovered is that many of these devices made by LivaNova were contaminated by a bacteria normally found in soil at the manufacturing site. That bacteria made its way into the water used to heat and cool the patient. This water, during the time of surgeries, is aerosolized and the patient may be exposed to the bacteria in the operating room.

Operating rooms are supposed to be free of bacteria or other contaminants, so when patients, months after their cardiac surgeries, began feeling symptoms of a bacterial infection not associated with their original surgery, hospitals began telling patients that they may have been exposed to a rare bacteria.

Plaintiffs in these heater cooler lawsuits claim that the bacteria they were exposed to is nontuberculous mycobacterium. This bacteria can resemble the symptoms of tuberculosis and can cause pulmonary diseases. In patients whose bodies are already vulnerable because they have had cardiac surgery, a bacterial infection such as this can be dangerous and even deadly.

However, some attorneys for plaintiffs in these heater cooler lawsuits would rather the cases be heard on an individual basis. With trial dates already set for some, consolidation would set back some of the progression of the plaintiffs’ cases.

The Heater-Cooler Lawsuits are In re: Sorin 3T Heater-Cooler System Products Liability Litigation (No. II), MDL No. 2816, in the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation.