The lawsuit was filed by LaVinnia L. W., a woman from Texas who was implanted with the C.R. Bard G2® Vena Cava Filter in August 2007.
She accuses C.R. Bard of selling a defective medical device and inadequately warning about safety risks.
The G2 was introduced in 2005 to replace the Recovery, which was pulled off the market without a recall after Bard’s own studies raised safety concerns. It was later linked to a 40% 5-year fracture risk.
In 2010, Bard pulled the G2 off the market without any recall and replaced it with another nearly-identical filter called the Eclipse.
On August 9, 2010, the same day the FDA published a safety warning about IVC filters, a major study was published that warned about “high prevalences of fracture and embolization” associated with G2 and Recovery.
In another study published in 2014, researchers estimated that 38% of G2 filters would fracture within 5 years, based on data from 829 patients. More recently, an investigation by NBC News discovered hundreds of injuries and at least 12 deaths associated with the G2.
The lawsuit was filed on November 10, 2016 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona — Case No. 2:16-cv-03919.
As of mid-November, C.R. Bard was facing over 1,100 other IVC filter lawsuits 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. He a trial attorney in Dallas, Texas who serves as plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel in the Cook IVC Filter MDL and is on the plaintiffs’ steering committee of the Bard IVC Filter MDL.