Mar 24 2015
Legal-Bay LLC, The Lawsuit Settlement Funding Company, announced today that Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon subsidiary reached a settlement in a bellwether trial over their transvaginal mesh devices. The settlement came just one day after a $5.7 million verdict was reached against J&J's Ethicon by a California jury over their Gynecare TVT Abbrevo vaginal mesh device. Details of the latest settlement have not been disclosed. The settlement was for a lawsuit that was selected for a bellwether trial as part of a federal mass tort against Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon. While the settlement details have not been disclosed, this settlement came just one day after a huge loss for Ethicon in the $5.7 million verdict reached against them for a woman plaintiff in California.
There are currently over 70,000 cases relating to transvaginal mesh devices; J&J's in-company filings have disclosed that they are the subject of over 30K claims themselves. Due to the high volume of cases, seven different multidistrict litigations (MDL) for filed cases against several mesh manufacturers are under U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin. Ethicon is just one of the mesh manufacturers involved.
Chris Janish, CEO of Legal-Bay, commented on the recent settlement, "As we have reported, Johnson & Johnson has been taking the worst of the bellwether mesh trials, losing 3 out 4 large verdicts. Although the terms of the recent settlement were not released, it signals a great sign for the plaintiffs – that J&J is now starting to believe that some cases are better to be settled at realistic settlement values than by proceeding to trial. This could signal talks of a global settlement on a large number of claims in the near future."