Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) subsidiary Ethicon could be facing a steeper-than-expected tab when it comes to settling the more than 46,000 product liability lawsuits brought over its pelvic mesh products, after details about 1 settlement became public in a legal filing.
J&J agreed to pay $5 million to settle plaintiff Pamela Wicker’s lawsuit alleging that its Prolift mesh caused her injuries, Bloomberg reported. Wicker’s lawyer, Adam Slater, revealed the $5 million payment in a November 2015 filing seeking Judge Brian Marinotti’s approval for his $1.65 million legal fee, according to the news service.
In January, the New Brunswick, N.J.-based healthcare giant agreed to pay $120 million to settle the 1st 2,000 to 3,000 suits it’s facing. The amount of the Wicker settlement could mean that the cost of settling the cases moves much higher, according to Carl Tobias, a product-liability law expert the University of Richmond in Virginia.
“This settlement is a bad sign because it shows investors it’s going to cost a lot more to deal with this liability than people expected,” Tobias told Bloomberg.
The Wicker case “presented unique circumstances,” J&J told the news service via email. While the estimated cost of the mesh litigation isn’t broken out, “the company appropriately discloses overall litigation expenses.”
“From time to time we have agreed to resolve some cases,” J&J said. “We will not discuss the terms of resolutions, nor discuss our ongoing litigation strategy.”
Last month a New Jersey appeals court upheld an $11.1 million jury award in another Prolift case; in February, a Philadelphia jury docked the company $13.5 million in a suit filed over its Ethicon transvaginal polypropylene tape; J&J is appealing that verdict.
The post Johnson & Johnson’s $5m mesh settlement could push costs higher appeared first on MassDevice.
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