Defective Hip Implants: Stryker Agrees to a Settlement

We want to share this new information out of Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Stryker has agreed to settle its defective hip implants for at least $1.43 billion dollars.  The deal - brokered by a New Jersey Superior Court judge - resolves state and federal lawsuits against Stryker.  The all metal  devices create tiny particles of metallic debris that can damage tissue or muscle, which resulted in Stryker recalling the devices.

This is the latest settlement against a product manufacturer of a metal-on-metal hip implant. Last fall Johnson and Johnson agreed to pay $2.5 billion to resolve cases involving its DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip implant.

This Stryker settlement will come as good news for many Washington State residents who have been saddled with these defective hip implants. It adds certainty to the process and puts an end to further protracted litigation.

SGB leads the way representing Washington State residents in defective hip and other product liability lawsuits.  If you think you may have a claim against Styker, give us a call. Our  product liability lawyers at SGB are happy to discuss this with you.

Auto Defects: Why are so many Deadly Cars on the Road?

You would think that with the advancement of technology that it would translate into safer automobiles.  It doesn’t.   Sure, many of the problems of yesteryear have long been resolved –the fuel tank problems of the Ford Pinto are thankfully no longer with us.  But they’ve been replaced by other defects, many of which are electronically activated features of the modern car, such as sudden acceleration or air bag defects.   Yesterday’s New York Times opinion piece by Clarence Ditlow and Ralph Nader, entitled Weak Oversight, Deadly Cars explains how this all happened:  industry regulators have been captured  by industry itself.   And when money trumps, safety recalls that should be promptly issued, aren’t.

We’ll be following up with a posting on post-accident things to explore in order to see if, unbeknownst to you, your accident was the result of an auto-defect. Meanwhile, SGB and its team of auto-defect lawyers urge you to check the  safercar.gov  website or the NHTSA recall website to see if the car you are driving has been recalled.

Premier Product Liability Attorney Teams up with SGB

I bring exciting news to the world of Washington Product Liability law.  It concerns my law firm, Schroeder Goldmark & Bender. We are already a premiere defective product law firm.  Whether it is a catastrophic injury or a mass tort, SGB is a leader in product liability litigation. But our deep bench of outstanding product liability lawyers just got deeper with the addition of product liability trial lawyer Peter O’Neil.   When it comes to product liability cases, Peter O’Neil is a veritable titan; he has a national reputation.

The car industry knows him best.  They have seen Peter successfully litigate one automobile defect case after another: General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Hyundai, Toyota, and Nissan and the list goes on. All have had to deal with Peter O’Neil. Peter has succeeded in other product cases as well, ranging from defective heating pads and dangerously designed tractors to dangerous drugs.  Whoever he is up against knows that they are facing an elite Washington product liability lawyer.

Peter posses qualities that have led him to excel: intellectual curiosity, courage, and tenacity.  His intellectual curiosity is what causes him to probe the cause of a catastrophic product failure.  He crawls under cars, tests like parts, and works until he has figured out a particular defect.  He then has the courage to take on the mightiest of defendants.  I actually think he relishes the challenge and the opportunity to bring a big corporation to its knees.  Lastly, Peter is tenacious; he won’t stop until he gets the result he’s after.

I had the chance to work with Peter last year on an automobile defect case that we successfully settled.  It was a real joy to be front and center watching a product liability master at his craft.  I’m excited to be teaming up with him on additional products cases.  Our entire products team is jazzed.

Welcome, Peter.  We’re so happy to have you.

Defective Product Alert: Baby Wipes Containing Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria

To all Washington State parents of babies: There has been a recall of baby wipes. The wipes contain a bacteria that is resistant to common antibiotics.  If you purchased baby wipes at Walgreens, Sam’s Club, Family Dollar, Fred’s or Diaper.com, check to see if you have any of the following brands that are subject to the recall:   Cuties, Diapers.com, Femtex, Fred’s, Kidgets, Member’s Mark, Simply Right, Sunny Smiles, Tender Touch, and Well Beginnings.  For more questions call Nutek Disposables at 1-855-646-4351.  For more info, you can read about it here .

Here at Washington Product Liability Blog, we seek to inform folks about a faulty product before it does harm. We’ve seen how things turn out after a faulty product causes harm when the injured parties come to us, the Washington State product liability lawyers at SGB, for help. We’d much prefer to see the injuries never occur in the first place.

Defective Product Update: Thousands of defective St. Jude Riata leads still remain implanted in US

St. Jude Medical Inc. sent a letter to physicians warning of problems with Riata and Riata ST leads, which connect an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) to the heart in order to monitor heart rhythms, on November 28, 2011. The FDA later classified the letter as a Class I Recall, the most serious type of recall – for products or devices that may cause serious adverse health consequences or death. St. Jude had already stopped selling these leads in late 2010, after more than 227,000 had been distributed worldwide. The FDA reported that, as of 2011, approximately 79,000 Riata leads remained implanted in patients in the US. The FDA, concerned that the Riata and Riata ST leads that show insulation abnormalities on imaging may be at greater risk of future electrical failure, recommends that physicians image Riata and Riata SST implanted  leads to assess for externalization or other visible insulation abnormalities.

New York Times  reported in its March 27, 2012, issue that at least 22 deaths were caused by the defective wires. Another eight patients died during procedures to remove the wires. Dr. Robert Hauser, author of the study, said the number of deaths was small compared with the number of patients who had these models of wires. However, “because it may be catastrophic, we need to be paying more attention to what are the electrical signs that might help us identify patients who are at risk,” he said.