Lawsuit Information Center
DePuy lawyers sought yesterday to consolidate DePuy Orthopedics hip replacement lawsuits into a pseudo-class action lawsuit (for discovery and bellwether trial purposes) at a hearing at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
The two big issues are:
(1) Should the DePuy Orthopedics Lawsuits Be Consolidated?
Plaintiff lawyers claim that all the DePuy hip replacement lawsuits involve one or more common questions of fact and, in fact, are premised on virtually identical factual allegations with the key central issue: were these hip implants defective?
(2) Is the Northern District of Illinois the Appropriate Venue for the DePuy Lawsuits?
The argument here is that there are already three cases in this venue, it has experienced judges, and it is – just look at a map – centrally located. New Jersey and California are also being considered and some DePuy lawyers have argued that these would be more advantageous venues.
In response, DePuy Orthopedics argues that they don’t want to have Judge Susan D. Wigenton as the MDL judge. Why? DePuy claims the reason is because Judge Wigenton is presiding over the Zimmer hip implant MDL, and that it will be a burden on Judge Wigenton. I wonder, did they ask her if she would mind? Can a judge handle the burden of presiding over two different claims? It has happened before; you know.