Bard PowerPort Lawsuit

What Are the Allegations Against the Manufacturer in the Bard PowerPort Lawsuit?

The lawsuits filed in the PowerPort litigation allege that the manufacturer made a dangerous and defective product that has caused preventable injuries to those who trusted these devices. Bard’s PowerPort catheters are implanted under the skin to give venous access for fluids or medications. They are commonly used in chemotherapy for cancer patients and in similar circumstances for regular treatment regimens or management of chronic conditions.

According to these lawsuits, the PowerPort catheter has a design or manufacturing flaw. This flaw, a combination of an improper mix of ingredients used to make the polyurethane implant and a lack of a protective coating, causes a significant durability loss and creates a brittle, easily broken catheter.

Serious complications can occur when these catheters deteriorate, crack, or fracture. Some of these complications, such as sepsis, are especially dangerous for those with weakened immune systems from chemotherapy or other treatments. Other concerns can cause catastrophic or fatal injuries regardless of your previous or current health status.

Some possible issues related to a fractured PowerPort catheter could include:

• Serious systemic infections, such as sepsis
• Hematomas
• Migration of broken parts
• Damaged or lacerated blood vessels and hemorrhaging
• Organ or tissue damage
• Necrosis
• Deep vein thrombosis
• Pulmonary embolisms

These lawsuits also allege that the manufacturer continued to market the device after complaints of catheter fractures, migration, and an increased risk of serious infections. If they can prove this is true, plaintiffs could hold the manufacturer liable and recover punitive damages.

What Criteria Must Plaintiffs Meet to Join the Bard PowerPort Lawsuit?

All multidistrict litigation has criteria that plaintiffs must meet to participate. If you experienced the following and you had significant pain, injuries, or treatment as a result, you may qualify to file a lawsuit and join the Bard PowerPort mass tort.

• You have or had a Bard PowerPort catheter implant,
• Your PowerPort cracked, broke, migrated, or there was another type of failure,
• Your PowerPort failure caused injuries or infection, and
• You required additional medical care, revision surgery, or repair surgery.

Some people opt to file an individual lawsuit and not join the mass tort. This is your decision to make. However, your defective device attorney will ensure you make an educated guess based on the facts of your case and your unique position to pursue justice for yourself and your family.

Most will find that participating in the mass tort offers advantages they will not have if they choose to navigate their case in a state court or other jurisdiction.

If you believe you could qualify to join the mass tort, contact our team as soon as possible. We can assess your options and discuss how an attorney familiar with this case can help you get justice. We refer injured individuals to our co-counsels nationwide. We can also help families whose loved ones died from Bard PowerPort injuries, as many of these complications can be fatal.

What Do I Need to Know About the Bard PowerPort Multidistrict Litigation?

In August 2023, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated lawsuits based on the breakage of Bard PowerPort catheters into the multidistrict litigation known as MDL 3081 IN RE: Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation. This order transferred the cases into the U.S. District Court, District of Arizona, under Sr. District Judge David G. Campbell.

While one stated purpose of multidistrict litigation is to help move cases through the courts faster, multidistrict litigation moves slowly. After over a year, this case continues to hear pretrial motions and work on discovery.

In addition, the number of pending actions continues to grow. This is expected to continue as more potential plaintiffs learn about the case and their legal options. On September 3, 2024, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation report shows that 427 plaintiffs have filed lawsuits and are participating in the PowerPort MDL.

Bard PowerPort Case Updates

As of September 2024, the Bard PowerPort MDL continues pretrial motions and discovery. One of the following tasks will be choosing which cases will be heard in the initial bellwether trials. Bellwether trials are those heard early, under the oversight of the MDL judge in U.S. District Court. The trial’s outcome does not affect other cases, but it serves as a test for how juries react to the evidence presented.

In July 2024, lawyers for each side met and narrowed the options for bellwether trials to just 24 lawsuits, according to Case Management Order No. 24. From there, they will participate in an investigative process to learn the facts of these cases and determine which ones will be the best fit for bellwether trials. They will likely choose two to six lawsuits for trial as bellwether cases.

The number of plaintiffs participating in MDL 3081 will continue to grow during this process. A short-form complaint is available for the mass tort, meaning lawyers do not have to file an entire lawsuit to include plaintiffs in this case. Moving forward, this does not affect the case; plaintiffs can return to their original jurisdiction for a trial.

Who Are the Defendants in MDL 3081?

Medical device manufacturer C.R. Bard, Inc. manufactures the PowerPort catheter, which makes it the primary defendant in the PowerPoint mass tort. Bard has been a subsidiary of Becton, Dickinson, and Company since 2017.

C.R. Bard, Inc., is a large, well-known medical, hospital, and surgical device company that manufactures a wide range of implantable devices, tools, implements, and other items for use in hospitals and clinics.

What Damages Can a Plaintiff Recover in a Bard PowerPort Lawsuit?

When you suffer injuries due to another person’s negligence and hire a personal injury lawyer to handle your case, they seek compensation for the full range of expenses and losses you incurred because of your accident and injuries. The same is true for a dangerous or defective device case.

Your attorney will still seek evidence to document your injuries, expenses, and losses. They will still work with experts to understand your prognosis and any future care or support you might need because of your PowerPort failure and related injuries.

The recoverable damages in these cases could include:

Economic Damages

Economic damages include all the expenses and financial losses you experienced because of the PowerPort failure or complications. This includes medical bills, future treatment and care costs, lost income, and related expenses.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages are the intangible losses you suffered and may continue to suffer. This includes physical pain, mental anguish, disability, reduced quality of life, and more.

Punitive Damages

Punitive damages are more common in dangerous and defective product cases than in personal injury cases. They are rare in cases based on someone else’s negligence but much more common when there is evidence that a company knowingly wronged consumers.

Punitive damages penalize the defendant and send a clear message to others not to act similarly. They are generally awarded by juries when a case goes to trial, and there is strong evidence that the defendant acted in an especially egregious way.

As the discovery process continues, there is no way to know if a jury might award punitive damages in a Bard PowerPort injury lawsuit. It will depend greatly on the facts of the case and what evidence is available to support the plaintiff’s assertion that the company was aware of the risk of failure.

How Much Is a Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Settlement Worth?

As of September 2024, there have not been any settlement offers in the Bard PowerPort mass tort. It is much earlier in the process than when we generally see settlement offers in multidistrict litigation. This usually occurs following discovery or after one or more bellwether trials end in verdicts for the plaintiffs. This could still be a year or more for MDL 3081.

It is difficult to predict how much a PowerPort case might be worth. Numerous factors influence where the parties begin settlement negotiations and what a fair settlement might look like. In dangerous medical device cases, some plaintiffs often have serious, lasting injuries.

Some of the factors that could affect a potential settlement in the Bard PowerPort mass tort include:

• The evidence uncovered to support the plaintiff’s case against Bard
• The severity of the injuries that occurred, which range from relatively minor to catastrophic or even fatal
• The plaintiff’s range of expenses and losses and the costs they need covered
• Any applicable laws, such as caps on non-economic or punitive damages in some states
• How the settlement is structured, such as individual, tiered, or global

As these cases proceed, your attorney may be able to provide you with more information about the possible financial recovery in your case. However, there is no way to determine if or when a settlement offer might occur. It is too early in the process for the device manufacturer to consider settling the cases.

This will only occur—if it does—after the company sees the strength of the evidence against it and decides that settling the case is a better strategic decision than fighting cases in court.

How Does Multidistrict Litigation Work? How Does Participating Help Plaintiffs?

Multidistrict litigation allows plaintiffs to work together to develop a strong case, gather evidence, hire experts and researchers, and take other steps to hold the defendants accountable. This is crucial because most individuals do not have the resources to develop an effective and convincing legal strategy against a large, multi-national corporation.

Multidistrict litigation is a process used by the U.S. court system to consolidate many similar cases into one mass tort for the initial stages of the legal process. The cases are consolidated for:

• Pretrial motions
• Discovery
• Bellwether trials

Pretrial motions ensure each lawsuit receives the same treatment, has the same rules, and has the same general facts. Discovery is when each side investigates what happened, shares interrogatories and depositions, learns about the science of the case and gathers evidence to support their arguments. The bellwether trials allow lawyers from each side to try out their arguments to see how a jury reacts.

Cases that are not settled or dropped during the MDL process can return to their original jurisdictions to go to trial.

How Do Mass Tort Settlements Work?

Mass tort settlements can work in several ways. The defendants’ offer could be to individual plaintiffs, some plaintiffs, or all plaintiffs. They determine how they want to make the offer, and the plaintiffs can accept or reject it. Generally, the judge overseeing the case will need to approve all settlement offers, even if the parties agree.

Some types of mass tort settlements include:

• Global Settlements: These offers would settle most or all the cases with a single payout.
• Tiered Settlements: A tiered settlement is often used when some people suffer serious injuries while others have minor injuries. The settlement might provide differing amounts of money based on injuries or other case facts.
• Individual Settlements: When injuries and damages vary widely, individual settlements may be necessary. This considers each plaintiff’s unique expenses and losses when making and negotiating the settlement.
• Establishing a Settlement Fund: Sometimes, there is a high likelihood of future cases. When this occurs, the courts could make the defendants establish and fund an account where injured parties can turn to recover compensation. This is unlikely in MDL 3081 because the complications related to the Bard PowerPort are apparent after the catheter’s failure, not years later.

The Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Is Not the First Mass Tort for the Company

MDL 3081, the PowerPort mass tort, is not the first time Bard has been the defendant in multidistrict litigation in Judge Campbell’s courtroom. In August 2015, he oversaw MDL – 2641 IN RE: Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation.

This case involved thousands of plaintiffs who suffered injuries when implantable inferior vena cava (IVC) filters broke, migrated, and caused serious injuries. These filters punctured veins, damaged tissues, and caused severe bleeding and other complications. The lawsuits alleged these issues occurred due to manufacturing and design defects in the devices.

As you can see, the premise of this case—an implanted device fracturing and causing venous and organ damage—is similar to the current PowerPort allegations. This could be why the U.S. Panel on Multidistrict Litigation felt Judge Campbell would be a good fit to manage this case.

In MDL 2641, Bard ended the case with individual settlements for each plaintiff to cover their recoverable damages. These settlements occurred after several bellwether trials, with Reuters reporting that one ended in a $3.6 million award for the plaintiff.

How Long Do I Have to File a Bard PowerPort Lawsuit and Join MDL 3081?

How long you can wait to file a Bard PowerPort lawsuit and participate in the mass tort will depend on the progress of the case and the statute of limitations that applies in your case. Each state sets a statute of limitations for suing a party that caused you harm. These can vary from one year to four or more. However, they can be complex in these cases.

Your best option is to contact our team as soon as possible to discuss your legal options. We can assess your case and offer information. We can also talk about the current case status of MDL 3081. This mass tort will likely continue to accept new cases for the foreseeable future.

As of September 2024, it is still in the early stages, and it is likely to try the first bellwether case in mid-2025 at the earliest. They have yet to select the handful of cases to go to trial in MDL 3081. Eventually, this will stop, and the case will not accept additional actions. This usually occurs when settlements are forthcoming, or the case is otherwise resolved.

What Should I Do If I Believe I Qualify to Join the Bard PowerPort MDL?

If you suffered injuries because your Bard PowerPort implanted catheter fractured or caused other significant injuries, you should reach out to our team today. We can help you understand your rights, discuss your options for holding the manufacturer accountable, and connect you with a defective product lawyer from our partner law firms representing plaintiffs in this lawsuit.

Throughout this process, it is important to continue following your doctor’s treatment plan and working to heal from your injuries. Focusing on your recovery is vital for your future, as well as for your legal case.

Also, save all documentation about your implanted catheter, your concerns about it, the complications that occurred, and the treatment you required. You will want to document how this affected your treatment for your underlying condition that required the catheter implant, too. Keep everything you have in a folder or digital file so you can share it with your attorney when it is time to build your case.

Our Team Can Help You Understand Your PowerPort Lawsuit Legal Options

While most individuals and families will opt to join the mass tort against Bard, you could have multiple options for seeking compensation based on your injuries and complications from your catheter failure. This includes:

• Participating in MDL 3018
• Filing a lawsuit in a local or state court

Your attorney will outline your options for you and can help you weigh the pros and cons of each option. Depending on your unique circumstances, you may want to avoid the mass tort and pursue a case in a state court or take other steps to get justice.

Before you meet your attorney, you can count on our team to answer your Bard PowerPort frequently asked questions and ensure you understand your rights. Contact us today to get started. Our co-counsels can represent clients in all 50 states in the PowerPort mass tort or another related legal action. We will refer you to the law firm familiar with these cases that best fits your needs.