An expert witness in the first DePuy ASR hip replacement lawsuit to go to trial (In re: Loren Kransky and Sheryl Kransky v. DePuy, Inc., et al., BC456086, Los Angeles Superior Court) recently testified that Johnson & Johnson knew that ASR XL hip replacements had failed internal tests, but kept that information to itself. It’s not a good start for J&J and DePuy as 10,000 more DePuy hip replacement plaintiffs wait in the wings.
DePuy Could Have Changed ASR Design, But Didn’t
According to a recent article in Bloomberg, George Samaras, an expert witness who testified in the first DePuy ASR hip replacement lawsuit to go to trial, told a jury this week that when DePuy’s own ASR design tests initially failed, the company “[c]hanged the test… They didn’t do what they were supposed to do, which is change the design.”
Samaras’s testimony referred to internal DePuy documents which showed that initial testing on ASR hip devices failed the company’s own safety standard testing and produced 16 times more chromium and cobalt debris in the body than another DePuy product. The latter can result in metallosis – a condition caused by an excess of metallic debris in the bloodstream, which can lead to metal poisoning.
That’s exactly what happened to the plaintiff in this case, Loren Kransky, who is suing DePuy for defective design and failure to warn about the dangers involved with the ASR XL hip. Kransky, who had to have his implant replaced after only five years of use, alleges that the implanted metal cups didn’t stimulate in growth of surrounding bone, were unstable in the hip and that the metal-on-metal design led to toxic debris of cobalt and chromium ions in his bloodstream.
Damaging DePuy Evidence
DePuy hip lawyers following the case say that Samaras’s testimony may be very damaging to the global manufacturing giant, which recalled 93,000 ASR hip replacement devices in 2010 after reports showed a 12 percent failure rate. Since that time, reported ASR failure rates have reached upwards of 44 percent.
If you’ve been injured, contact The Driscoll Firm, LLC, to discuss your situation, determine whether you might be entitled to compensation and find out how this first DePuy injury trial might affect you.
