• 14
  • September
    2010

After a three month-long trial in Rhode Island, a jury awarded $1.5 million in compensatory damages after finding that the medical device manufacturers failed to warn about the risks of a defective Kugel Hernia patch. The U.S. District Court judge declined to allow the couple who filed the suit to pursue punitive damages.

Husband and wife brought the lawsuit against Davol, Inc. and C.R. Bard, Inc, the manufacturers of the Kugel Hernia patch implanted in the husband's body. The compensatory damages were for injuries resulting from the defective patch. The husband claims that he underwent numerous surgeries to repair damage in his abdominal wall and that he continues to suffer pain.

The couple objects to the judge's denial of the request for punitive damages. The husband alleges that he has sufficient evidence to establish egregiously wrongful acts committed by the defendants such as a late recall of the defective product, continued marketing even after breaks occurred, and evidence that there was a "strong push" for managers to sell the product in mass numbers to hospitals even while there was a "formal investigation" into the cause of the breaks.

This lawsuit was the second suit which resulted in a verdict in a series of "bellwether" trials concerning the Kugel patch. The "bellwether" trials consist of cases that have been selected to predict how juries will respond to similar evidence that will be presented in later trials. Over 3,000 other Kugel hernia mesh lawsuits are pending in the Rhode Island federal court and the Superior Court of Rhode Island. Although this trial ended in a large verdict for the plaintiff, the outcome of further cases is unclear as the first early trial in the series resulted in a verdict for the defense.

Source: AboutLawsuits.com, "Kugel Hernia Patch Lawsuit Results in $1.5M Verdict," 8/24/10