A new DePuy Pinnacle hip implant lawsuit is filed against DePuy Orthopaedics by an Ohio man alleging he suffered serious bodily injury due to a failed and defective Pinnacle hip implant.

According to the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant lawsuit, plaintiff Paxton W. underwent a hip replacement procedure in June 2006 to have the Pinnacle hip implant inserted.

It was on Dec. 3, 2015, when Paxton began experiencing severe pain and underwent revision surgery to replace the failed Pinnacle hip implant, the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant lawsuit states.

He claims that the defendants knew that the product was defective but refused to disclose that information to him. Due to the allegedly defective device and failed Pinnacle hip implant, he was forced to undergo the additional risky and painful surgery.

Paxton claims that with the hip revision surgery, his recovery has been long and painful. According to the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant lawsuit, he alleges that to this day, he continues to suffer from pain in his right hip.

Paxton filed the DePuy Pinnacle hip implant lawsuit on Dec. 11, 2017, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, as part of a larger DePuy multidistrict litigation.

The DePuy Pinnacle hip implant lawsuit was filed on multiple counts of failure to warn, negligence, design defect, manufacturing defect, breach of express warranty, breach of implied warranty, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud.

DePuy Pinnacle Hip Implant Lawsuit

The Pinnacle hip implant multidistrict litigation joins several plaintiffs who claim the Pinnacle hip implant system contains a design defect leading to serious adverse effects, complications, and early hip implant failure following hip replacement procedures.

DePuy Orthopeadics, a division of Johnson & Johnson, released the Pinnacle system in 2001 as a total hip arthroplasty system functioning to increase a patient’s range of motion and mobility.

However, according to the Pinnacle hip implant MDL, the Pinnacle system is a defective device that leads to serious injury and other risks and complications.

The lawsuits against the companies allege the device releases toxic levels of metal particles into patients’ bloodstream and causes other adverse effects such as non-cancerous tumors, inflammation, swelling, pain, degenerative heart disease, and premature failure of the device.

The issue with the Pinnacle hip system is that it is manufactured as a metal-on-metal (MoM) device composed of chromium and cobalt, among other metals. The complications result as the metal components of the device rub against each other, as part of normal function of the device.

Patients further report that as the metal components of the device rub together, the device can cause metallosis, or the buildup of metal particles in the body, allegedly caused by metal erosion from the device.

Claims like Paxton’s being filed against the companies allege that clinical trials, which could have forewarned and revealed the device’s malfunctions and defective nature, were not performed.

The Pinnacle Acetabular System was approved through the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 510(k) process. Under this provision, medical devices awaiting approval may not be required to go through a full evaluation if a predicate device, similar in nature, has already passed the approval system.

DePuy Orthopaedics, to approve the Pinnacle device, approved it through its predicate device the ASR XL Acetabular system. The ASR XL Acetabular System was taken off the market in 2010 after the manufacture found the devices causing hip implant failure much earlier than expected.

The Pinnacle Hip Implant Lawsuit is Case No. 3:17-cv-03271-K, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division. The Pinnacle Hip Implant MDL is In re: DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. Pinnacle Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3:11-MD-2244-K, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.