The lawsuit was filed by Eula H., a woman who was implanted with the C.R. Bard G2® Vena Cava Filter on October 15, 2008 at a hospital in Florida.
C.R. Bard introduced the G2 in 2005. It was created as a “new-and-improved” version of the Recovery Vena Cava Filter, which was introduced in 2003 and pulled off the market in 2005 without a recall.
The Recovery was withdrawn soon after an internal report by Dr. John Lehmann linked it to higher rates of complications than its competitors, especially regarding migrations and fractures.
The G2 was approved without clinical trials because its design was “equivalent” to the Recovery. Soon after it was introduced, the G2 was also linked to serious safety concerns — 12 deaths and hundreds of injuries were reported to the FDA, according to an investigation by NBC News.
Instead of recalling the G2, C.R. Bard kept it on the market and sold 160,000 of the devices by 2010. That same year, a study found “high prevalences of fracture and embolization” with Recovery and G2.
Even more recent studies have estimated a 38% 5-year fracture risk for the G2, and a 40% 5.5-year fracture risk for the Recovery.
Lawyers accuse C.R. Bard of selling a defective and unreasonably dangerous medical device, inadequately testing it for safety, and failing to warn about side effects.
The lawsuit was filed on December 20, 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona — Case No. 2:16-cv-04487.
It will be centralized with over 1,225 other IVC filter lawsuits now pending against C.R. Bard in Multi-District Litigation (MDL No. 2641)— In Re: Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation.
The plaintiff is represented by Ben C. Martin of The Law Offices of Ben C. Martin in Dallas, Texas. He a trial attorney who serves on the plaintiffs’ steering committee of the Bard IVC Filter MDL.
