A federal judge presiding over more than 30,000 vaginal mesh lawsuits in multidistrict litigation has urged vaginal mesh manufacturer C.R. Bard to settle thousands of lawsuits based on multi-million dollar jury verdicts and the potential for the company to be on the hook for billions more.

At a December hearing, U. S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin in Charleston, W. Va., told vaginal mesh complications lawyers that based on “a material fact that five different state forums have, on average, returned verdicts of over a million dollars per plaintiff,” C.R. Bard should strongly consider settling.

“I can’t imagine a corporation facing potentially billions of dollars in verdicts wouldn’t find it advisable to try to achieve a settlement for a much lesser sum,” Goodwin said. “I base that billions of dollars business on some of the rather large verdicts that we’ve had.”

Georgia company C.R. Bard makes the Avaulta Mesh Implant, also known as the Avaulta Mesh Insert, a vaginal mesh device used to treat pelvic organ prolapse and stress urinary incontinence.

In August, a federal jury awarded a woman more than $2 million in damages for injuries caused by her C.R. Bard vaginal mesh implant. It is one of several recent verdicts against the manufacturer.

In November, a California appeals court affirmed a 2012 vaginal mesh settlement for $3.6 million, in the first case to go to trial against C.R. Bard, to a woman who suffered injuries from a vaginal mesh implant. C.R. Bard and the woman’s gynecologist shared responsibility for the injuries, the jury found. The physician, according to jurors, had 40 percent responsibility. The total verdict was for $5.5 million.

In that case, the plaintiff – who suffered fecal incontinence and could no longer have sex with her husband because of the defective device – suffered pain, nerve damage and incontinence as a result of using C.R. Bard’s Avaulta Plus implant, her vaginal mesh lawsuit claimed.

“In some of those cases, juries found the implants were defectively designed, and in others the panels found Bard and other insert makers failed to properly warn women and their doctors about the devices’ risks,” according to Bloomberg news.

In less than a month, federal juries in Florida and West Virginia found Boston Scientific Corp.’s transvaginal mesh inserts – designed to treat stress urinary incontinence – were defective, awarding a total of more than $45 million in judgments.

A Miami jury found Boston Scientific liable for defective Pinnacle pelvic mesh products – used to treat pelvic organ prolapse – that four plaintiffs said injured them. In that case, Boston Scientific was ordered to pay $26.7 million.

Federal jurors in Charleston, W. Va. found the company liable for its Obtryx vaginal implants causing chronic pain in four women. Jurors awarded $18.5 million in damages, $4 million of that designated as punitive damages

Plaintiffs in both cases argued that the mesh inserts eroded inside their bodies, causing organ damage and pain.

Boston Scientific failed to adequately warn the women and their doctors about the risks of the Obtryx implants, according to the jury verdicts.

In September, a Texas jury awarded a woman $73 million in damages for injuries suffered from a Boston Scientific Corp. vaginal mesh insert.