The wrongful death lawsuit was filed on behalf of Margaret W., a deceased woman who was injured by a Recovery® Inferior Vena Cava Filter (“IVC Filter”) manufactured by C.R. Bard Inc. and Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc.
Bard Recovery® IVC Filter
The IVC filter was surgically implanted on March 10, 2005 at a hospital in New Jersey. She was injured by it after moving to Texas.
C.R. Bard is accused of negligence, manufacturing and selling a defective medical device, fraudulently concealing safety hazards, and downplaying side effects that contributed to the plaintiff’s death.
In 2005, the same year the Recovery IVC filter was implanted in her body, C.R. Bard withdrew it from the market without issuing a recall.
The decision came soon after an internal study by Dr. John Lehmann discovered that the Recovery IVC filter had higher rates of complications like migration and fracturing than its competitors.
Dr. Lehmann recommended “further investigation of the Recovery VCF filter performance in relation to migration and fracture is urgently warranted.” Instead, C.R. Bard decided to keep the study a secret and did not warn doctors or patients about the risk.
The report was finalized in December 2004. The following year, Bard quietly withdrew the Recovery from the market and replaced it the G2® IVC filter, a nearly-identical model as the 1st-generation Recovery. Not surprisingly, both filters were linked to similar hazards.
In 2012, a study estimated that 40% of Recovery IVC filters would fracture within 5.5 years of implantation. Similarly, a study in 2014 estimated that 38% of G2 IVC filters would fracture within 5 years.
The lawsuit was filed on April 26, 2017 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona — Case No. 2:17-cv-01235-DGC.
C.R. Bard is facing over 1,700 other IVC filter lawsuits in a centralized 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 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.