MT Services LLC, a Lawsuit Settlement News Reporting Company, announced today that C.R. Bard paid $3.6 million in damages in the first Avaulta transvaginal mesh case. The case was filed in July of 2012, and it was the first transvaginal mesh case in which a plaintiff was awarded damages rather than the case resulting in a settlement.
It was also the first TVM pelvic mesh case to go to trial. Originally, the jury had reached a verdict awarding $5.5 million to the plaintiff, however, the doctor who implanted the mesh was found to be at fault (40 percent), thus reducing Bard’s share of the damages to $3.6 million. C.R. Bard appealed, however, they were denied in February of this year. According to Mesh Medical Device News Desk, they found evidence that the amount of damages was paid by C.R. Bard in March of 2015 “in the company’s 10-Q quarterly report to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) issued October 23, 2015.”
Although C.R. Bard ceased selling Avaulta in July 2012, the company still faces over 21,000 product liability lawsuits regarding its transvaginal mesh products. According to the article on Mesh Medical Device News Desk, 12,735 of those cases were consolidated and are currently filed in the multidistrict litigation in a federal court in Charleston, West Virginia.
There have been six multidistrict litigations against different mesh manufacturers, consolidating more than 80,000 lawsuits against the companies. The lawsuits against the different manufacturers allege that the transvaginal mesh devices and bladder slings caused serious injuries, and the manufacturers involved have had verdicts against them, and have also agreed to high settlements.
