Zimmer Hip Settlements Almost Here

It seems that Zimmer has found themselves waist deep in a pile of lawsuits. The company, which put out a defective hip replacement system in 2008, has started to receive countless lawsuits regarding their hip implants. Because of this, they have set aside $47 million dollars to pay out settlements instead of going to court.

No Settlements Yet

Even though Zimmer has placed aside $47 million dollars in order to pay for settlements, there still have been no publicly announced settlements. However, the payouts are just around the corner, because patients are still coming forward to this day, complaining about Zimmer and their implants, and complaining about the extreme pain and swelling that they are feeling.

Zimmer Hip Replacement Problems

So how exactly did all the lawsuits against Zimmer start? Lawsuits against Zimmer began to surface in 2008 when a large number of patients began to experience problems with their Zimmer hip replacement systems. These patients experienced many symptoms, like loosening of the joint, and many had to go in for hip revision surgery. This forced Zimmer to send out a recall for all of their hip replacement products, which led to a large number of lawsuits being filed against the company. Settlements to patients may number in the millions of dollars.

High Failure Rates

According to multiple studies done on Zimmer’s hip replacement implants, the failure rate of these devices was somewhere around 6%. This is much higher than the industry average. One study saw that 14 out of 160 patients experienced devastating complications with their implant systems.
Settlements to patients are focused on those who have had to go on and have hip revision surgery in order to fix their implant.
After the recall Zimmer actually reintroduced their product into the U.S. market, claiming that surgeons were at fault, and that the device was perfectly fine.