No End In Sight To Zimmer Hip Lawsuits

In July 2008, Zimmer suspended US sales of the Durom Cup following complaints about Zimmer hip implant failure due to loosened components that required revision surgery. That year, Zimmer’s own estimates suggested that some doctors in the US experienced failure rates as high as 5.7 percent with the Durom Cup. However, some Zimmer Durom Cup Zimmer Hip Lawsuit claim the failure rate could be as high as 30 percent.  It is estimated that 500,000 patients in the U.S. may have received metal-on-metal hips, and it’s very likely that tens of thousands will be forced to undergo painful revision surgery due to early failures. More lawsuits are also expected and some experts believe the litigation surrounding all-metal hips may emerge as the largest product liability cases of this decade.

In July 2008, the manufacturer decided to suspend U.S. sales of the product, but a Zimmer Durom Cup recall was not issued since they did not uncover evidence of any manufacturing defect or design defect.  In fact, they intend to reintroduce the artificial Zimmer hip implant failure after they develop instructions about the special surgical techniques that doctors need to use to avoid the risk of Durom Cup problems. 
They have also indicated that they will implement a new training program for U.S. surgeons, though many prominent orthopedic surgeons have stated that the fault lay in the design of the implant and not in their technique. 

When the Zimmer NexGen litigation was consolidated there were 28 lawsuits filed in 13 different federal district courts throughout the United States. Since then, at least 72 other cases filed in various federal court have been transferred to the Northern District of Illinois. However, some Zimmer NexGen attorneys representing plaintiffs have suggested that hundreds of complaints are likely to be filed in the coming months over the artificial knee systems.After all federal Zimmer Durom Cup hip lawsuits were consolidated last year as part of a multidistrict litigation, or MDL, individual discovery and proceedings on the cases were stayed while the parties continued settlement negotiations. Although the complaints involve a number of different implants, most of the problems have been linked to the Zimmer NexGen high-flex knee components, Zimmer NexGen MIS tibial components and Zimmer NexGen LPS gender solutions.