Guess How Much Stryker Is Spending to Settle Hip Implant Suits

Stryker is the latest major medical device company with a huge metal-on-metal hip implants settlement: The Kalamazoo, MI-based company has agreed to pay more than $1.4 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits.

Plaintiffs, who complained of pain, swelling and metal debris in their bodies, will receive a base amount of $300,000 if they had the devices surgically removed before Nov. 3, 2014, Bloomberg News reported. Patients who needed multiple surgeries may receive more than the base amount, an attorney representing Stryker told Bloomberg.

Stryker recalled its Rejuvenate and ABG II artificial hips in July 2012, warning surgeons they could harm tissue around the hip and cause other health problems. New Jersey had more than 2,100 cases, and there are another 1,500-plus federal suits centralized in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, according to a report in the New Jersey Law Journal.

The settlement comes after months of mediation and was announced simultaneously before U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul, and New Jersey Superior Court Judge Brian R. Martinotti in Hackensack. Retired federal magistrate judge Diane Welsh helped mediate the settlement.

"We are delighted that the innovative bellwether mediation program initiated by Judge Martinotti in the New Jersey MDL litigation blossomed into a favorable global settlement. It is virtually unprecedented to globally resolve a litigation less than one and a half years from the formation of mass tort litigation," Ellen Relkin, a lawyer at Weitz & Luxenberg P.C. who was court-appointed chairperson of the Plaintiff Steering Committee, told Qmed.

Stryker (Kalamazoo, MI) has recorded charges to earnings of $1.425 billion to resolve the suits, according to a settlement announcement from the company. That represents the low end of what the company expects it will cost to resolve the claims, the Wall Street Journal reported. On Monday, the company said it was uncertain of the ultimate cost, and that it may record further charges to its earnings.Most payments under this settlement will be made by the end of 2015.

"This settlement program provides patients compensation in a fair, timely and efficient manner," Bill Huffnagle, a spokesperson for Kalamazoo, Michigan-based Stryker, wrote to Bloomberg in an e-mailed statement.

The Stryker settlement was the latest in a series of multi-million-dollar hip replacement legal agreements over the past few years.

One of the largest involves DePuy Orthopaedics, a Warsaw, IN-based subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, which has agreed to an estimated $2.5 billion settlement related to DePuy ASR hip implant product liability lawsuits.

Find out other key events of the 2014 hip implants lawsuit bonanza.

Nancy Crotti is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.

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