Nearly 350 DePuy ASR metal hip implant lawsuits were dismissed without prejudice from New Jersey Superior Court earlier this month. The plaintiffs of the dismissed lawsuits will instead have their complaints addressed in the related DePuy metal hip implant settlement that was announced last year.

On August 7, Superior Court Judge Brian R. Martinotti, with the permission of all the litigants involved, dismissed the 350 DePuy metal hip implant lawsuits based on the fact that these plaintiffs will have their hip implant claims resolved in the $2.5 billion DePuy MDL settlement. The affected cases were enrolled concurrently with this settlement, which was announced by the orthopedic company last November and is still waiting court approval.

The expected DePuy metal hip implant settlement will cover an estimated 8,000 patients whose ASR Acetabular Cup System metal hip replacements allegedly failed and needed follow-up surgeries to replace and fix the damage. However, despite the dismissal of close to 350 lawsuits, 275 DePuy metal hip implant lawsuits remain in New Jersey court.

According to DePuy’s spokesperson Mindy Tinsley, “The U.S. settlement program is moving forward and is designed to provide fair compensation to eligible ASR patients without the delay and uncertainty of protracted litigation[.]”

The majority of the remaining plaintiffs whose lawsuits were not dismissed (or, alternatively, opted out of the DePuy settlement) are patients who did not undergo hip revision surgery to remove the ASR hip implants before Aug. 31, 2013, the cut-off date established by the settlement.

The DePuy Metal Hip Implant Lawsuit is In re: DePuy ASR Hip Implants Litigation, Case No. L-3971-11, in the Superior Court of the State of New Jersey, County of Bergen.

Background ASR Metal Hip Replacements

The ASR Acetabular Cup System is a metal-on-metal hip implant designed, manufactured, and sold by Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedic. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted DePuy approval for its ASR hip implant system back in 2005, at which point DePuy and J&J began an aggressive marketing campaign for their hip implant product.

However, only a few months after the ASR metal hip implant’s introduction into the market, consumer and medical reports of the ASR him implants failures began to surface. Over 600 reports were submitted to the FDA between 2006 and 2009 addressing the ASR hip replacement systems’ high failure rate. These reports demonstrated that in many cases the DePuy hip implants allegedly failed within a few months or years of implantation, a worrisome trend considering that traditional hip implants are designed to last over a decade.

In light of these FDA reports, DePuy recalled the ASR hip replacement system in August 2010. All patients, including those who did not experience pain or complications from their DePuy hip implant, were advised to have the metal hip implant product removed and replaced.

ASR Metal Hip Implant Side Effects

According to several DePuy metal hip implant class action lawsuits (as well as individual lawsuits), the ASR metal hip implant system’s high failure rate can be attributed to DePuy’s product design. The hip implant is shaped in such a way that makes the product difficult to implant. Surgeons have reported difficulties finding proper angle alignment to provide efficient hip support in the implant area. Additionally, when the ASR implant allegedly fails, small metal particles break off from the DePuy product and can cause the patient inflammation and extreme pain.

Other complications that may indicate a failed ASR Metal Hip Implant Systems include:

• Hip failure
• Unexplainable hip pain and discomfort
• Random loosening of ASR Hip Implant
• Inflammation in surrounding hip tissue from ASR metal

Subsequent surgery is required to remove and replace the DePuy ASR product. Even after the defective hip implant is removed, a patient may continue to suffer severe pain and discomfort. Because of the complications during and after the implantation of the ASR hip replacement system, many individuals have chosen to pursue DePuy metal hip implant class action lawsuits.

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