A long-anticipated Bard hernia mesh settlement finally appears to have been reached, which could resolve most of the litigation with payouts over a number of years, though the details of the agreement are being kept confidential and individual plaintiffs still need to agree to participate.
Over the past six years, C.R. Bard has faced more than 21,000 separate product liability lawsuits, each involving similar allegations that plaintiffs suffered painful and debilitating injuries caused by design defects associated with various polypropylene hernia mesh products, including the Bard Ventralight, Bard Ventralex, Bard Perfix Plug, Bard 3D Max and similar systems.
Given common questions of fact and law raised in the claims, Bard hernia mesh lawsuits brought throughout the federal court system have been centralized before U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus in the Southern District of Ohio since August 2018, as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL. In addition, similar consolidated proceedings have been established in the state courts of Rhode Island, where the manufacturer’s headquarters are located.
Following mixed results in a series of early bellwether test trials, which were held to help determine how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that may be repeated throughout thousands of claims, the parties have been meeting with a mediator to conduct intensive Bard hernia mesh settlement talks, before large numbers of individual claims were remanded for trials nationwide.