The lawsuit was filed by Robert T., a man from Pennsylvania who was injured by the G2® Inferior Vena Cava Filter (“IVC Filter”) manufactured by C.R. Bard Inc. and Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc. The device was implanted on April 10, 2008 at a hospital in Pennsylvania.
The IVC Filter was surgically implanted in his vein for the purpose of preventing Venous Thromboembolism (VTE), a life-threatening medical condition in which blood clots form deep inside the body and travel in the bloodstream until they get trapped in the heart or lungs.
C.R. Bard G2® Inferior Vena Cava Filter
The G2® was introduced by C.R. Bard in 2005, the same year Bard withdrew its 1st-generation Recovery® IVC Filter from the market.
Although Bard’s own internal studies found higher rates of fracture and migration associated with the Recovery, Bard made no major design changes before marketing the G2® as a superior replacement.
Not surprisingly, the G2 was quickly linked to similar complications that were associated with the Recovery from 2003 to 2005, less than 3 years on the market.
In December 2005, soon after the G2 was cleared by the FDA, a vice president at C.R. Bard wrote a confidential memo expressing his concern about “problems with…migration,” “tilting” and “perforation.”
He noted that the Simon Nitinol Filter has “virtually no complaints” and asked why doctors should not be using it instead of the G2. He also wrote:
It seems to me that the biggest (worst case) consequence of these migrations is that they are accompanied in a majority of cases by tilting. This raises the concern of lack of efficacy.”
In December 2015, an investigation by NBC News discovered 12 deaths and hundreds of injuries associated with the G2, as well as 27 deaths from the Recovery.
Lawyers accuse C.R. Bard of selling a defective medical device, failing to warn about side effects, inadequately testing it for long-term or short-term safety, and concealing these problems from doctors and patients.
The lawsuit was filed on June 30, 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona — Case 2:17-cv-02102-DGC.
It will be transferred to a centralized litigation involving more than 2,000 other IVC filter lawsuits 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.
Editor’s note: For more information about IVC Filter lawsuits and your legal rights, please contact The Law Offices of Ben C. Martin.