Blog Home

Avandia: GlaxoSmithKline agrees to settle before FDA vote
Posted by: Stephen Leshner
July 14, 2010
Topic: PRODUCT LIABILITY

   The move comes as the Food and Drug Administration votes today whether or not to withdraw Avandia from the market over its heart attack risks.

   GlaxoSmithKline will settle about ten-thousand lawsuits for an average payout of $46,000 apiece.

   Avandia's U.S. sales comprised only a tiny one-and-a-half percent of the British drugmaker's 2009 sales.

   Its withdrawal from the market could spur more lawsuits, however.

   The FDA could choose to keep Avandia on the market but beef up its black-box warning about the risk of heart attacks.

   The other option would be to further restrict Avandia's use.

  Glaxo moved quickly after two U.S. Senators ratcheted up the pressure yesterday by releasing documents underscoring safety concerns with the drugs.

   The documents showed Glaxo had tried to brush off scientific concerns about the increased risk of heart attack in users.

   The FDA is also under pressure of its own, coming from consumer groups eager to test the Obama administration's promises of a more activist watchdog role for the agency.

   If you or someone close to you has been injured as a result of taking Avandia, please call Steve Leshner.

Permalink

Underinsured Motorist (UIM) Claims
Posted by: Stephen Leshner
June 27, 2010
Topic: PERSONAL INJURY LAW

I previously posted about uninsured motorist (UM) claims. Those are claims against your own insurance coverage when the person who caused the collision has no insurance coverage. Underinsured motorist (UIM) claims are claims against your own insurance coverage when the person who caused the collision has insurance, but not enough coverage to compensate you for your injuries.

You don't have to be in your insured car to be covered. In fact, you don't have to be in a car at all. In order to be eligible for UIM coverage, you have to be struck by a motor vehicle that has insufficient insurance coverage. You can be in your car, or waking down the street, or at home in your bed when the underinsured car strikes you. Moreover, you don't need to have auto insurance at all to be covered. You do need to be a resident relative of someone who has UIM coverage.

For example, I just settled a case for a client who was injured when his car collided with another car. The other driver was at fault and had $25,000.00 in insurance coverage, which his company paid in full. My client had no insurance coverage on his vehicle. However, he was living with his uncle at the time of the collision. His uncle had $100,000.00 in UIM coverage. Even though my client was not listed as an insured on his uncle's coverage, my client was a "resident relative" of his uncle's household at the time of the collision, under the terms of his uncle's insurance policy, so there was coverage. His uncle's company paid their $100,000.00 policy limits to my client, so my client received a total of $125,000.00 for his injuries.

If you are injured in a motor vehicle collision, a knowledgeable, experienced lawyer can often secure insurance coverage even when there doesn't seem to be any available.

Permalink

Zimmer Duron Cup Hip Replacement Cases
Posted by: Stephen Leshner
June 24, 2010
Topic: PRODUCT LIABILITY

   The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has decided that all federal lawsuits involving the Zimmer Durom hip implants which involve allegations that the hip replacement device caused problems such as loosening of the hip joint and the need for additional surgery, should be consolidated for pretrial litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.

   The Panel's order, issued June 9, 2010 will result in 45 Zimmer hip replacement lawsuits currently pending in seven different federal courts across the country being transferred to Judge Susan D. Wigenton in New Jersey. The Panel determined that the cases should be consolidated as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, since they involve sufficiently common questions of fact. Since most of the cases were already pending in New Jersey federal court, the Panel determined that was the most reasonable location for centralization.

   The product liability claims involve allegations that problems with Zimmer Durom Cup hip implants were caused by defects in the design and manufacture of the components and due to Zimmer's failure to provide adequate warnings about the device.

   The Zimmer Durom Cup was first introduced in the United States in 2006, as a more advanced form of an artificial hip. The hip resurfacing system is designed out of a single piece of material and is supposed to avoid problems associated with traditional hip replacement components, such as instability, limited range of motion and wear of the bearing.

   Shortly after Zimmer introduced the Durom Cup in the United States, concerns emerged about a high number of hip replacement failures involving the hip implant, where the component loosened and required revision surgery. A temporary Zimmer Durom Cup recall was issued in July 2008, so that revisions could be made to the product's warnings and instructions to ensure that doctors were properly trained on the surgical techniques needed to implant the artificial hip correctly.

   Approximately 12,000 individuals had the Zimmer Durom Cup system implanted in their hip between 2006 and 2008. While Zimmer's own estimates suggested that some doctors have experienced failure rates as high as 5.7%, the plaintiffs claim that about 14% of those who have had the Durom Cup hip replacement implanted have required hip revision surgery.

   As of the end of last year, more than 500 adverse event reports have been filed with the FDA regarding Zimmer Durom Cup problems and many experts anticipate that the rate of hip cup loosenings could increase as time passes after the surgery.

   Although there are only 45 currently pending federal lawsuits over problems with Zimmer Durom Cup hip implants, it is expected that the number of cases will increase in coming months.   Zimmer opposed centralization of the cases, arguing that the cases involve multiple individualized fact issues and that creation of an MDL might derail their attempts to reach Durom Cup settlements without the expenditure of substantial time and resources. The MDL Panel disagreed, indicating that centralization was appropriate to eliminate duplicative discovery, prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings on discovery and to conserve the resources of the parties, attorneys and the courts.

   "Centralization should pose no realistic obstacle to Zimmer's settlement efforts," wrote Judge John G Heyburn, Chairman of the Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, in the order. "Should the parties to one or more actions believe that early resolution through mediation or other means is possible, they are free to approach the transferee judge to adjust the pretrial schedule accordingly."

   While the pretrial management of the cases in an MDL is in many ways similar to how a class action lawsuit would be handled, each claim will still remain an individual lawsuit that would be returned back to the jurisdiction where it was originally filed for trial if it does not settle or otherwise resolve during pretrial litigation.

  Steve Leshner is currently handling a Zimmer Durom Cup case in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix, Arizona, and successfully prevented the case from being transferred into the federal court MDL.  If you or someone you know has been injured as a result of a Zimmer Durom Cup hip implant, please call Steve Leshner for a free consultation to review your case.

Permalink

DePuy ASR Hip Replacements
Posted by: Stephen Leshner
June 24, 2010
Topic: PRODUCT LIABILITY

    In March of this year, the New York Times published an article about the high early failure rate of DePuy's ASR hip replacement. Since that article was published, many more reports of failures of ASR hip replacements have been received by both DePuy and the United States Food and Drug Administration. In its article, the New York Times quoted orthopedic experts critical of the design of the ASR hip replacement. Experts were also critical of DePuy's failure to stop sales of the device sooner.

   The evidence suggests that that the DePuy ASR hip replacement was defectively designed, and that DePuy knew that their ASR hip replacements were failing at a higher than expected rate, yet  did not pass that information on to consumers or orthopaedic surgeons. As a result, a diagnosis that the ASR hip replacement implanted in patients failed were needlessly delayed as their physicians were unaware of the prevelance of other failures. During patients' surgeries to replace failed hip replacements, orthopedic surgeons discovered that the cup portion of the ASR hip replacement were extremely loose. The ASR hip replacement was designed so that a patient's bone grows into the back of the cup to secure it. However, loosening because of a lack of bone in-growth into the cup is the critical aspect of DePuy ASR hip replacement failures.

   If you or someone you know suffered from a DePuy ASR hip replacement failure, please call Steve Leshner for a free case review and consultation.  Several years ago, Steve Leshner successfully handled over 50 Sulzer Orthpaedic hip failure cases which were also caused by a manufacturing defect that prevented adequate lack of bone-ing growth, and the consequent loosening of the cup.

Permalink

Steve Leshner Is Named a Super Lawyer for 2010
Posted by: Stephen Leshner
April 20, 2010
Topic: PHOENIX PERSONAL INJURY ATTORNEY STEVE LESHNER IS NAMED A ARIZONA "SUPER LAWYER"

For the third consecutive year, Steve Leshner has been named a Southwest Super Lawyer for 2010.  Steve limits his practice to plaintiffs' personal injury, medical malpractice and product liability cases.  Currently, Steve is representing injured victims of car, bicycle, motorcycle and truck collisions, as well as catastrophically injured victims of medical malpractice.  Additionally, Steve is representing a large number of claimants who lost their sense of smell as a result of taking Zicam, an over the counter cold remedy.  Steve is serving as member of the Plaintiffs Steering Committee in the Multi District Zicam Litigation in federal court in Arizona, as well as the lead counsel for Plaintiffs in the Zicam state court proceedings in Arizona.

Permalink