A Georgia resident joins a growing multi-district litigation claiming that DePuy hip replacement failure caused him injury.

Plaintiff Raymond W. claims that he had a hip replacement surgery for his left hip on June 6, 2006, and was implanted with a Deputy ASR hip implant. Allegedly, he says that over time, the hip implant caused him injury.

He aims to hold the makers of the implant, DePuy and Johnson & Johnson, accountable for his injuries. He argues that the design of the device was defective and that defect caused his injury.

Raymond’s case is just one of many DePuy lawsuits that have been filed over an alleged defect in the design of the DePuy ASR hip. Growing multidistrict litigation has begun over the issue and patients claim that they were injured by the design of the device. 

Allegedly, the ASR hip is made with a metal ball that fits into a metal socket. When these two metal pieces rub together, metal fragments from the device may fret off into the surrounding tissue. This occurrence can reportedly cause irritation or infection to the surrounding tissue, and in severe cases, can result in the death of the soft tissue or bone around the implant.

According to patients like Raymond, this DePuy hip replacement failure can cause so much metal to wear away from the components of the implant that the device no longer fits together properly, which can cause pain and difficulty moving.

Patients aren’t the only ones taking issue with the DePuy hip. A total of 45 Attorneys General around the country have reached a settlement with DePuy over their assertions that the companies misrepresented the DePuy hip as safe and effective, obscuring the possibility of DePuy hip replacement failure. 

According to Insurance Journal, DePuy and Johnson & Johnson have agreed to pay $120 million to resolve the issue with the failing hip. 

In Raymond’s case, and in the case of many other patients, allegedly the metal-on-metal design of the device caused metal fragments to fret away from the implant and into his body, elevating the levels of cobalt and chromium in his blood. Raymond says that he also suffered other injuries from the alleged DePuy hip replacement failure.

In addition to physical injury, Raymond claims that he suffered economic injury from the device because he had to pay medical costs associated with his injury and lost wages due to work he missed to recover from his injury.

He argues that DePuy and Johnson & Johnson knew or should have known that the metal-on-metal design of the ASR hip implant would possibly cause injury. According to patients, metal-on-metal designs were previously used in hip implants, but have been discontinued because they can cause injuries like those experienced by some patients who were fitted with the ASR hip.

According to patients, the ASR hip was approved by the FDA via a “fast track” approval process that enabled the device to be released onto the market without going through clinical testing. Allegedly, the device was approved based on significant similarity to existing devices, however, no significantly similar device exists that has gone through testing because metal on metal hip implants have not been used since the 1970s.

Additionally, Raymond says that could not have known that the device was defective until DePuy and Johnson & Johnson announced their recall of the device because of patient claims of injury.

His DePuy Hip Replacement Failure Lawsuit is Case No. 1:19-dp-20006-JJH, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division.