DePuy Multidistrict Litigation To Have Initial Status Conference This Week

Late last year, the United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL) consolidated the DePuy hip replacement lawsuits and assigned them to Judge David A. Katz of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. This week, on Thursday, January 20, the court will hold an initial status conference in West Palm Beach, Florida. In the conference, the lawyers who applied for leadership positions within the MDL process will receive two minutes to give their reasons for being assigned the various positions available.

MDL serves the parties by streamlining pretrial proceedings, especially the discovery process. In discovery, the parties exchange information relevant to their cases. In mass-tort situations like the DePuy hip replacement recall, the manufacturer will save itself (and the plaintiffs and the court) time and money by submitting all this information at once. Plaintiffs benefit by using the information in their respective cases. Importantly, plaintiffs who have filed hip replacement lawsuits against DePuy will likely have very different experiences and damages. For example, some people will have undergone revision procedures while others have not. The level of damage caused by cobalt and chromium in their bodies will also differ. As a result, class actions are not as effective while MDL is.

After the cases were folded into MDL in December 2010, the number of DePuy hip replacement lawsuits swelled to more than 100. Observers predict that the number will likely be much higher, rising into the thousands. The fact that the MDL process is moving so efficiently means that if you are one of the 93,000 people affected by the DePuy recall you should contact the Rottenstein Law Group for a free initial consultation to see if you are eligible for compensation from the manufacturer. If you are, click this link or complete the form in the upper right column in our web site.