A group of morcellator manufacturers recently submitted a response opposing several plaintiffs’ requests to centralize the federal lawsuits that have recently been brought against the medical device manufacturers.

The morcellator lawsuits allege that the device manufacturers created dangerous and defective medical instruments that caused serious harm to patients.

Several plaintiffs who have filed power morcellator lawsuits against several different medical device manufacturers recently submitted a motion to the multidistrict litigation panel requesting their cases be centralized for pretrial proceedings.

At the moment, there are at least 22 morcellation cancer lawsuits pending against morcellator device manufacturers in 16 different US federal districts. Each of these lawsuits alleges essentially the same claims of against the morcellator manufacturers.

The lawsuits allege that using morcellator devices during laparoscopic hysterectomy or myomectomy surgeries caused the spread of uterine cancer in each of the plaintiffs.

Centralizing lawsuits through a multidistrict litigation panel helps to create consistent and efficient pretrial rulings. An MDL helps to avoid duplicative discovery concerning common issues and prevents conflicting pretrial rulings before different federal judges.

In an MDL, all of the federal lawsuits would be heard before a single federal judge. The plaintiffs in the morcellator lawsuits requested the pretrial hearings be heard in a Kansas federal court.

The medical device manufactures who object to the motion to centralize the lawsuits claim that there are too few cases involved and too many different products at issue to justify establishing centralized proceedings.

Johnson & Johnson, one of the device manufacturers named in the morcellation cancer lawsuits, urges the panel to reject the creation of a multidistrict litigation for each device manufacturer. Johnson & Johnson argues that individual pretrial discovery is an important part of product liability lawsuits. The company also speculates that the number of morcellator lawsuits filed against its company will remain very low.

Other morcellator manufacturers involved in the litigation include Karl Storz, Richard Wolf Medical Instruments, and Gyrus ACMI.

Overview of Morcellator Lawsuits

In April of 2014 the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, warned the medical community and consumers about uterine cancer risks associated with using power morcellators.

Morcellators allow medical professionals to perform hysterectomies and myomectomies through a small minimally invasive incision. The FDA estimates that one out of every 350 women who undergo uterine fibroid surgery have undiagnosed or unsuspected cancerous sarcoma cells contained within their uterus. Morcellators are suspected to rapidly increase the spread of cancer cells throughout a patient’s body.