Our Eligibility & Screening Criteria in Hernia Mesh Cases
Your law firm needs a marketing partner that works in the first line when a potential client makes an inquiry from the internet, the radio, or TV. At Atraxia Media, we use best practices that help us quickly identify and onboard clients who are a good fit for your law firm, according to your criteria. Our marketing and intake process is a detailed one, involving the following stages:
- Pre-screening. Before diving deeper, we ask for enough information to determine whether a given client is a fit for your firm from the get-go.
- Thoroughly screening each case. We use your intake questionnaire and ask clients to provide essential information you'll need for their case.
- Signing only the cases that are based on your eligibility criteria. We know that selecting the right client at the outset is essential to your law firm's success. It's got to be a potential case that will translate into a solid case once medical records are pulled.
- Following up on all of our calls. We apply a good strategy for client retention: if the lead qualifies, we set up a follow-up appointment.
- Creating a consistent flow of qualified cases for your law firm. We want to help you get to a higher number of clients.
- Running marketing strategies that generate cases.
- Delivering cases that are exclusive to you and aren't handed out to anyone else.
Potential clients may be eligible to participate in a lawsuit if they underwent a hernia mesh repair and:
- Suffered serious injuries including:
- Adhesions
- Hernia recurrence
- Intestinal blockage
- Mesh migration
- Organ puncture
- Bowel perforation
- Infection
- Suffered serious injuries more than 30 days from the original date of surgery.
- Suffered hernia revision surgery or additional surgery because of complications.
We can rapidly screen injured patients who are eligible to file a hernia mesh claim and sign them customized as per your needs. We dedicate an internal team that screens and signs hernia mesh cases and works exclusively for you. All we need to know is the number of cases you need.
Hernia Mesh Facts & History
Nearly 18,000 hernia mesh actions have been filed, and that number will continue to climb in the future. Several different types of hernia mesh made by various manufacturers have been proven to have defects that could cause severe and life-threatening problems after hernia surgery. Hernia mesh litigation is the subject of 3 manufacturer-specific MDLs and also coordinated state proceedings.
Court records indicate that these individual cases filed and managed as part of the MDLs are pending in the federal court system:
- 11,787 Bard hernia mesh actions
- 3,423 Ethicon Physiomesh actions
- 2,667 Atrium C-Qur mesh actions
There are also two major consolidated proceedings in state courts:
- A Multi-County Litigation over problems with Ethicon's Prolene Hernia System in Atlantic County, New Jersey
- Thousands of consolidated cases against C.R. Bard & Davol pending in the Superior Court for Providence, Rhode Island. The Rhode Island court scheduled a bellwether trial for 2020.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation rejected a request to consolidate all Covidien mesh cases into an MDL. At least a dozen product liability lawsuits were filed by individuals who received Covidien mesh manufactured by the Medtronic subsidiary. Still, the panel determined that there are too few cases to justify formal coordination.
To date, lawsuits have also been filed for Gore-Tex Mesh products manufactured by W.L Gore. W.L. Gore cases have not been consolidated at either state or federal court level.
DAVOL, INC./C.R. BARD, INC., POLYPROPYLENE HERNIA MESH PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION, MDL NO. 2846
Location:
Presiding Judges:
- Edmund A. Sargus, Jr.
- Kimberly A. Jolson
Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsels:
- Timothy M. O'Brien
- Kelsey L. Stokes
Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel:
Defendants:
- C.R. Bard, Inc.
- Davol, Inc.
Executive Committee:
- Troy A. Brenes of Brenes Law Group, P.C. in California
- David R. Buchanan of Seeger Weiss, LLP in New Jersey
- Michael A. London, Chair of Douglas & London, P.C. in New York
- C. Brett Vaughn of The Hollis Law Firm, P.A. in Kansas
Steering Committee:
- Steven Charles Babin, Jr. of Babin Law, LLC in Ohio
- Michael C. Bradley of Pittman, Dutton & Hellums, P.C. in Alabama
- Roger Denton of Denton Law Firm in Florida
- Nicholas R. Farnolo of Napoli Shkolnik PLLC in New York
- Andrea Giovannone of Dalimonte Rueb, LLP in Washington, D.C.
- Lauren E. Godshall of Morris Bart, LLC in Los Angeles
- Robert L. Kinsman of Krause & Kinsman Law Firm in Missouri
- Howard L. Nations of Nations Law Firm in Texas
Products:
- 3D Max
- 3D Max-Lite
- Composix
- Composix E/X
- Composix Kugel (discontinued in 2012 after the first MDL)
- Composix L/P
- Kugel Patch
- Marlex (AKA Flat Mesh; Bard Mesh)
- Perfix Plug
- Perfix Light Plug
- Pre-shaped Mesh
- Spermatex
- Sepramesh
- Ventralex
- Ventralex ST
- Ventralight
- Ventrio
- Ventrio ST
- Visilex
Plaintiff Allegations:
The suits seek compensation for personal injury suffered following the insertion of one of the products mentioned above, and the manufacturer's failure to warn of the dangerous side-effects the insertion of such devices in the body can lead to.
History:
2023:
- March: A Maine man's lawsuit against C.R. Bard and Davol, alleging that a defective hernia mesh device caused him pain and complications, will proceed to trial for most of the claims.
2022:
- April: A jury awarded Antonio Milanesi $255,000, with $5,000 of the verdict awarded for loss of consortium. Milanesi's case was the second Bard bellwether trial. In the lawsuit, the man said his Ventralex hernia mesh was defective and caused a bowel abscess and infection. In the first bellwether in July 2021, the jury ruled in favor of Bard. Becton Dickinson bought Bard a few years ago and took on its hernia mesh liability. Bard still has 17,195 cases pending as of July 2022.
2021:
- Ethicon agreed to a global settlement for its Physiomesh cases but did make public the settlement amount. Atrium offered a global settlement for about 3,000 C-QUR Mesh cases in December and has not released the amount of the settlement. Still, Atrium's parent company, Getinge Group, said it set aside more than $66 million for hernia mesh litigation.
- After several delays associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the first Bard hernia mesh federal trial has been rescheduled for August 2, 2021. It will serve as a bellwether that will help gauge how juries may respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout thousands of other claims.
2020:
- Judge Edmund A. Sargus identified the first three cases that will go before juries as part of a bellwether trial schedule: Johns v. C.R. Bard, Inc., et al., Milanesi et al. v. C.R. Bard., Inc., et al., and Stinson v. Davol, Inc, et al.
- The Judge presiding over the MDL rejected a request by the manufacturer to strike supplemental expert reports submitted by the Plaintiffs.
- In the summary judgment ruling for the first bellwether trial, Judge Edmund A. Sargus trimmed the scope of compensatory damages. Still, the Judge left intact almost all of the Plaintiff's legal theories of relief.
- Judge Edmund A. Sargus determined that a date can be set for the first Bard MDL bellwether trial.
KUGEL MESH HERNIA PATCH PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION, MDL NO. 1842
Location:
- Rhode Island Federal Court
Presiding Judge:
Defendant:
- Davol, Inc., Bard Devices, Inc., and C.R. Bard, Inc.
Product:
- Composix Kugel mesh products
Plaintiff Allegations:
About 2,600 people alleged that they experienced severe injuries caused by problems with their Kugel mesh hernia repair patches.
History:
- This Kugel MDL was disbanded in 2017 as in 2011 Bard settled the Kugel lawsuits pending in the MDL for a total of $184 million. Victims received an average of $70,000 each. The MDL had been open for ten years.
- Despite the Kugel hernia mesh settlement and the disbanding of the lawsuit, it is not too late to file a Kugel hernia mesh lawsuit in 2021. Kugel cases may be filed in a consolidated Rhode Island state court proceeding for hernia mesh manufactured by Bard/Davol. A limited number of individual lawsuits alleging multi-million dollar damages have also been filed in various state courts.
ETHICON PHYSIOMESH FLEXIBLE COMPOSITE HERNIA MESH PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION, MDL NO. 2782
Location:
Presiding Judge:
Plaintiffs' Co-Lead Counsels:
- Henry G Garrard, III of Blasingame, Burch, Garrard & Ashley, P.C. in Georgia
- Donald A. Migliori of Motley Rice LLC in South Carolina
Plaintiffs' Liaison Counsel:
- Henry G Garrard, III of Blasingame, Burch, Garrard & Ashley, P.C. in Georgia
Steering Committee:
- Henry G Garrard, III of Blasingame, Burch, Garrard & Ashley, P.C. in Georgia
- Karen Beyea-Schroeder of Burnett Law Firm in Texas
- Shelly A. Sanford of Watts Guerra LLP in Texas
- C. Andrew Childers of Childers, Schlueter & Smith, LLC in Georgia
- Aimee H. Wagstaff of Andrus Wagstaff, P.C. in Colorado
- Jayne Conroy of Simmons Hanly Conroy in New York
- Donald A. Migliori of Motley Rice LLC in South Carolina
- Richard A. Freese of Freese & Goss, PLLC in Alabama
- Richard W. Schulte of Wright & Schulte, LLC in Ohio
- Douglass A. Kreis of Aylstock, Witkin, Kreis & Overholtz, PLLC in Florida
- Peter Samberg of Weitz & Luxenberg, LLC in New York
- Jon C. Conlin of Cory Watson, P.C. in Alabama
Defendant:
Product:
- PHYSIOMESH' Flexible Composite Mesh
Plaintiff Allegations:
The Plaintiffs request financial compensation for personal injury caused by the PHYSIOMESH' Flexible Composite Mesh, such as hernia recurrence, bowel obstruction, and sepsis, and for the failure of the manufacturer to warn of the dangerous complications their device can cause.
History:
2021:
- Judge Story identified four cases that had been worked up for a trial, indicating a lawsuit was to go before a jury on March 18, 2021. The trial is expected to be followed by a second trial set to begin on June 7, 2021. The final two cases will go before a jury, starting on September 13, 2021, as a consolidated trial.
2020:
- Judge Richard W. Story identified the four cases selected for early bellwether trials.
- The MDL moved through the discovery phase; the court and parties had to choose the individual cases for bellwether trials.
- In May 2020, the federal court set the first bellwether trial for November 2, 2020, the second bellwether trial on February 22, 2021, and the third trial for May 2021.
ATRIUM MEDICAL CORP. C-QUR MESH PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION, MDL NO. 2753
Location:
Presiding Judge:
Plaintiffs:
- Nearly 2,667 cases pending
Defendant:
Product:
Plaintiff Allegations:
The Plaintiffs seek compensation for personal injuries such as bowel obstruction following the insertion of the C-QUR mesh and the manufacturer's failure to warn of these life-threatening side effects.
History:
2021:
- The first in-person federal trial is scheduled to occur on July 7, 2021. This trial will be followed by additional state and federal bellwether trials.
2020:
- The first trial was set to take place on February 19, 2020.
- Judge Landya B. McCafferty called for the parties to narrow down the list of potential bellwether cases to just two cases.
- Atrium tried to push the trial back to January 2021, but Judge McAfferty did not move the trial date. The court identified which individual case will be the first bellwether trial.
