J&J Reportedly Agrees To Resolve Most Pinnacle Hip-Device Lawsuits

(RTTNews) - Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) agreed to settle the bulk of consumers' lawsuits alleging it sold defective artificial hips and misled patients about their dangers, Bloomberg reported citing a lawyer for the plaintiffs.

"The parties have reached an agreement that hopefully will resolve most, if not all, of the litigation,'' said attorney Mark Lanier, one of the leaders of the consolidated 10,000-suit litigation against J&J and its DePuy unit, maker of Pinnacle hip-replacement devices.

After the deal was disclosed, a federal jury in Dallas that had been hearing testimony in damage claims brought by five Pinnacle hip recipients was dismissed Monday, Lanier reportedly said. The settlement comes two weeks after J&J agreed to pay $120 million to resolve claims by state attorneys general of deceptive marketing in the metal-on-metal version of its Pinnacle inserts and nearly a month after Bloomberg News reported the manufacturer might be willing to pay more than $400 million to settle 3,300 hip cases.

In the earlier settlement, J&J agreed to pay an average of about $125,000 per case to resolve about a third of pending Pinnacle-hip suits, the report said. That settlement involved 20 law firm's cases, according to court filings.

Hip patients have been suing J&J and DePuy since 2010, alleging the devices failed prematurely or gave them metal poisoning. J&J took the metal-on-metal version of Pinnacle off the market in 2013.