(Bloomberg) -- Becton Dickinson & Co. has agreed to settle the “vast majority” of the thousands of lawsuits claiming hernia patients were harmed by improper surgical mesh made by units of the medical technology giant, ending one of the largest current mass-tort litigations in the US.
Financial details weren’t disclosed in a Wednesday statement by Becton Dickinson, which didn’t admit any wrongdoing. In June, it set aside $1.9 billion to cover all its product-liability exposure — including about 38,000 hernia-mesh cases consolidated in an Ohio federal court and in state court in Rhode Island, according to court dockets. Settlements will be paid out “over a multi-year period,” the company said.
Becton subsidiaries CR Bard and Davol used improper plastic that caused infections, organ damage and pain, according to the suits. The units were accused of misleading doctors and patients about the safety of mesh used to repair weak spots in groins and abdominal walls. Doctors perform more than a million hernia surgeries each year in the US.
“The settlement amount is already recorded as a liability within BD’s consolidated balance sheet and the agreement will not result in an incremental charge to the company’s consolidated income statement,” the company said. “BD believes this agreement is in the best interest of all parties and is structured to eliminate uncertainty for all stakeholders related to the settled cases. The hernia mass tort litigation represents a large majority of BD’s total product litigation reserve.”
Bard, which Becton acquired in 2017 for $24 billion, was previously involved in separate litigation over a different kind of mesh. It was among a host of medical-device makers that paid about $8 billion over the past decade to settle more than 100,000 suits tied to mesh designed to address womens’ urine leaks. The companies didn’t admit wrongdoing.
Patients who received some Bard and Davol hernia meshes alleged the companies used plastic that manufacturers had warned was not suitable for implantation in human bodies. Becton disputes those arguments, however, and says the resin-strengthened plastic was safe.
Rising Sales
Sales of hernia mesh, which came on the market in 2002, generated about $5 billion for Becton in 2019, and the global market could reach $6.53 billion by 2027, analysts said.
The accord would resolve all cases consolidated before US District Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Columbus, Ohio, for pre-trial information exchanges and test trials. It also will settle a host of cases filed in state court in Rhode Island. Patients who sued have the right not to join the settlement and pursue jury trials for their cases.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers Tim O’Brien and Kelsey Stokes said in a statement they were pleased that nearly 25,000 patients in the consolidated case in Ohio will receive “a measure of justice” through the global settlement.
A jury in Rhode Island concluded in August 2022 that Becton must pay $4.8 million to a man who blamed Davol’s hernia mesh for damage to his bowels. Davol and Bard were accused of using a plastic in the mesh that even the supplier deemed unfit for use in the human body.
Bard won the first case to come to trial before Sargus, but juries later hit the company with a total of $755,000 in damages in two other trials. Jon Orent, a plaintiffs’ lawyer who won the $4.8 million Rhode Island verdict, said Wednesday the accord “proves the system works” when patients seek to hold hold companies accountable for their misdeeds.
The case is IN RE Davol/CR Bard Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Litigation, 2:18-md-2846, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (Columbus).
(Updates with comments from plaintiffs’ lawyers.)
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