Searcy Denney Continues to File New Lawsuits Against Stryker Over Recalled Modular Hip Implants  

The Mass Tort Unit of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley has filed yet another individual lawsuit this week on behalf of a Deerfield Beach resident who was injured due to a failed Stryker hip implant.  In this latest case filing, the plaintiff underwent a surgery for implantation of a Stryker hip implant with a ceramic head, polyethylene liner, and an ABG II stem in late 2010 at North Broward Medical Center.  The patient did relatively well with the implant for the first few years after implantation.  The ABG II stem (along with the Stryker Rejuvenate hip implant stem) was recalled in the summer of 2012 due to fretting and corrosion of the modular hip implant components.

The patient was asymptomatic for a period of time, but did eventually develop significant pain with walking and associated low back pain.  Her orthopedic surgeon ordered a number of tests to evaluate whether the Stryker ABG hip implant was failing, including blood tests to determine the levels of cobalt in her bloodstream as well as a MARS MRI looking for the presence of a pseudotumor and inflammatory fluid around the implant.

Here is an MRI (with a MARS reduction) machine, similar to what the Plaintiff’s surgeon used to discover the presence of metallosis.

After being monitored for a period of time without improvement in her condition, her surgeon determined that a revision surgery to remove the recalled hip implant was necessary.  During the surgery to remove the recalled implant, the surgeon noted the presence of inflammatory fluid in the patient’s joint around the hip implant and other signs and symptoms consistent with metallosis.  In the lawsuit, the plaintiff seeks damages for pain and suffering and economic losses relating to the failure of this implanted device, the need for revision surgery, and long-term effects of the failure of the device and damage to her bone and soft tissues in the hip joint, which may impair the success of the hip implant placed at the time of the revision surgery as well as future hip implants.

Despite the fact that Stryker has settled thousands of ABG II and Rejuvenate hip implant failure lawsuits, those patients who underwent revision surgery after November of 2014 were excluded from the settlement. We at Searcy Denney represent many victims who fall into this category.  A number of individual modular hip implant cases remain pending against Stryker in state and federal courts around the country.  These plaintiffs either opted out of the $1.5 billion settlement program that was announced in November of 2014, or were ineligible for that settlement program due to the date of their revision surgery or for other reasons.

Attorney Cal Warriner serves as a leader in the national litigation and filed the first case in the country against Stryker for its recalled hip implants in August of 2012.  Cal Warriner was also selected by the court to serve on the negotiation team for the national settlement program and continues to represent clients in various state court jurisdictions in their individual lawsuits against Stryker.