Verdict: $1.04 Billion in Texas Trial for Six DePuy Pinnacle Plaintiffs

December 1st, 2016:  A Texas jury returned a verdict of $1.04 billion against Johnson & Johnson DePuy Orthopaedics. This bellwether trial was the second bellwether verdict against Johnson and Johnson, which was previously found liable for $498 million for 5 separate DePuy Pinnacle plaintiffs.

The $1.04 billion cover six plaintiffs whose cases were tried in front of a Texas jury at the same time.  The jury trial ended November 30th after two months of open court examination of the six cases and the facts regarding DePuy Pinnacle and DePuy Ultamet metal liners. The plaintiff attorneys argued that Johnson & Johnson and DePuy Orthopaedics were liable for failure to warn about the defects of the metal liners, which used in a metal on metal combination resulted in metallosis from the release of heavy metals cobalt and chromium. The metal liners were discontinued from the market after evidence of their failures emerged, without a formal FDA recall.