A distributor of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) hip implants and a former sales representative dropped a request for court sanctions against an Atlanta law firm that they said used confidential patient data to solicit clients. The request stemmed from one of more than 4,500 lawsuits over the recall by J&J’s DePuy unit of its ASR hips in 2010. The firm, Childers, Schlueter & Smith LLC, filed five lawsuits against the ASR distributor and sales representative on behalf of patients including Candace and Gordon Hershberger of Georgia.