A new pelvic mesh lawsuit seeks compensation for the side effects a woman from South Carolina allegedly suffered after having the medical product implanted.

Plaintiff Ruby A. is bringing a pelvic mesh lawsuit against defendant C.R. Bard Inc. Her claim is one among several similar pelvic mesh lawsuits consolidated into a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, going on in a West Virginia federal court.

In these actions, women who were implanted with Bard products allege they suffered pelvic mesh complications beyond what they were led to expect by the manufacturer’s warnings.

Ruby takes issue with the Bard-manufactured Align TO Urethral Support System she says her doctor implanted in her in September 2010.

By reference to the MDL’s master long form complaint, Ruby alleges that the implant she received was defectively designed in a way that causes unacceptable pelvic mesh side effects.

She says Bard failed to properly warn her of the potential pelvic mesh complications associated with their products, complications that may not resolve without surgical intervention.

Bard failed to properly test their vaginal mesh products and eventually promoted them with unfounded representations that they were effective and safe, the pelvic mesh lawsuit further claims.

Bard Pelvic Mesh Lawsuit Information

According to one estimate, approximately 10,000 pelvic mesh lawsuits have been filed in the Bard MDL since it was created in October 2010.

It’s one of seven different MDLs regarding alleged pelvic mesh complications associated with several different manufacturers’ products used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and urinary stress incontinence.

All told, these MDLs have drawn an estimated 70,000 pelvic mesh lawsuits into a single federal court in West Virginia.

The plaintiffs in these actions blame the manufacturer’s such as Bard for a slew of different pelvic mesh side effects. They say the devices are prone to shrinkage, degradation, fracture, and migration away from the implantation site.

The lawsuits allege that the products are made of a polypropylene mesh that is “biologically incompatible” with human tissue, provoking a painful inflammatory response and an increased risk of infection.

Pelvic mesh products are conceptually related to similar implants that have been used since the 1950s to repair abdominal hernias. The pelvic mesh systems are used to treat pelvic organ prolapse, a condition in which the muscles in the pelvis lose their ability to support the surrounding organs and allow them to descend into the vaginal canal.

Bard was the defendant in the first pelvic mesh lawsuit to go to trial, in which a plaintiff alleged her implant caused serious internal injuries. That trial ended in August 2013 with a $2 million jury award for the plaintiff.

The high volume of cases in the seven MDLs has prompted one Philadelphia plaintiff’s law firm to request that several dozen of its clients’ cases be transferred to a court in Pennsylvania, in hopes that taking them out of the massive West Virginia litigation would lead to faster resolution.

The Bard Pelvic Mesh MDL is In re C.R. Bard Inc. Pelvic System Products Liability Litigation, Case No. 2:10-md-02187, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.