DePuy, Inc. ASR Hip Implant Recall Large Contributor to Johnson & Johnson's $2.9 Billion Charge for 4th Quarter 2011
This has led many product liability experts to believe that the DePuy litigation could top Avandia as the top "class action" litigation for 2011. Industry experts are pointing towards the Sulzer Hip Recall of 2001 in which the Swiss Medical Device maker's recall placed in 31,000 patients settled for $1Bil. The DePuy Recall is 3 times the size of Sulzer. And with J&J executives recently deposed as to "what they knew", many believe that J&J's total exposure could top $3bil. Apparently, this was a major factor in J&J's CEO, Bill Weldon, deciding to step down.
One indication of the potential size of the settlement value for the DePuy victims is based on the lawsuit settlement funding industry's view of DePuy. Legal-Bay LLC -a leader in lawsuit funding for both Avandia and DePuy- recently announced that they have secured $2.5mm in financing just for DePuy pre-settlement funding clients.
Patty Kirby, Director of Client Relations at Legal-Bay commented, "Our research has indicated the average settlement amounts of the DePuy cases will top the Sulzer $200K average; cases in which the patient had the implant and revision surgery, could have values close to $1mm each. Based on this, we have been funding our DePuy clients with advances up to $50K to pay bills until they get their ultimate settlement."
Legal-Bay was accurate in their forecast in the Avandia litigation as well, when they predicted GlaxoSmithKline would settle for over $2bil. Recently, Glaxo settled 25,000 claims related to Avandia through mediation for what is being reported as close to $3bil. However, victims will not get their money for months.
Legal-Bay's website: lawsuitssettlementfunding.com and their toll free hotline 877.571.0405 have been busy taken lawsuit loan applications for the DePuy and Avandia litigation. If history proves right this does not bode well for J&J on DePuy.
Contact:CNJ Enterprises- Julie Jansen, Cnjenterprisesllc@gmail.comLegal-Bay- Patty Kirby,info@legal-bay.com, +1-877-571-0405
SOURCE CNJ Enterprises LLC