A Kentucky woman joined thousands of other plaintiffs who filed lawsuits against Stryker Orthopaedics over alleged defects in one of the company’s metal-on-metal hip implants.

Plaintiff Debbie B. had Stryker’s ABG II hip stem implanted in her right hip in November 2011. She alleges the hip implant caused her subsequent injury and economic loss.

She states she was unable to know of the defects in the ABG II until she was informed that Stryker had recalled that product and until after blood work showed she had abnormally high levels of chromium and cobalt. She has not yet scheduled hip revision surgery to have the hip implant removed, according to her lawsuit.

Debbie’s hip implant lawsuit raises claims of negligence, defective design and manufacture, failure to warn, breach of warranty, violation of state consumer protection laws, and misrepresentation. She seeks compensation for her injury and economic loss, statutory damages, and an amount to cover her litigation costs, including attorney’s fees.

She is also claiming unjust enrichment, for which she is asking the court to award her the profits Stryker made on the allegedly defective device.

Complications of Stryker Hip Implants

Stryker is on the receiving end of thousands of hip implant lawsuits like Debbie’s, based on defects in its Rejuvenate and ABG II hip implants. These implants were popular when first introduced to the market because they were durable enough to withstand heavy physical activity such as running.

However, while other hip implants typically last 15 to 20 years, some of Stryker’s Rejuvenate and ABG II implants began to fail after about two years. The implants’ metal-on-metal mechanism was found to shed chromium and cobalt into the bloodstream, causing a toxic condition called metallosis.

Failure of the implants resulted in pain, immobility, and formation of new growths called pseudotumors. Some patients have had to have hip revision surgery to remove their Stryker implants, increasing both pain and medical expenses. Stryker began recalling these hip implants in July 2012.

Stryker Hip Lawsuits

Debbie’s hip implant lawsuit is one of thousands of similar lawsuits consolidated into a single multidistrict litigation, or MDL, in the U.S. Court for the District of Minnesota. An MDL is a procedural device used when a large number of lawsuits are filed over similar facts – a common occurrence with products liability lawsuits such as Debbie’s.

The MDL consolidates these lawsuits from across the country into a single court, allowing that court to make consistent and timely decisions on issues that apply similarly to all the lawsuits. (That’s why Debbie is filing her lawsuit in a Minnesota court even though she lives in Kentucky.)

An MDL is different from a class action lawsuit in that individual plaintiffs retain their stance as individual claimants instead of being melded into a single class.

The Stryker MDL is In re: Stryker Rejuvenate and ABG II Hip Implants Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 13-02441, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.

Other Stryker hip lawsuits have been consolidated into New Jersey state court. In November 2014, Stryker agreed to pay over $1 billion to resolve some of the claims.