Exactech Knee Replacement Lawsuit

• • Exactech Recall Lawsuit
  • Exactech Ankle Replacement Lawsuit
    

Exactech Lawsuit Updates

Our goals is to keep you apprised of all the latest developments in the Exactech litigation:

Exactech Class Action May 2025 Update

• There are now 1,842 active lawsuits pending in the Exactech orthopedic implant litigation, a small drop from last month’s total of 1,851.

Exactech Class Action March 2025 Update

• With the bankruptcy still pending, the automatic stay prevents any new Exactech lawsuits from being filed and added into the MDL. The number of cases in the MDL remains at 1,840.

Exactech Class Action February 2025 Update

• As expected, no new cases were added to the Exactech MDL last month due to the bankruptcy stay. While our firm is not accepting new lawsuits, we remain are hopeful for favorable outcomes despite the ongoing bankruptcy proceedings.

Exactech Class Action January 2025 Update

• No new cases were added to the Exactech class action MDL during the month of December. This is the result of the automatic stay that took effect when Exactech filed bankruptcy, which prevents new cases from being filed. The number of pending cases in the MDL sits at 1,839.

Exactech Class Action December 2024 Update

• The Exactech implant recall MDL continued its steady growth with 33 new cases added in November, down slightly from 36 in October. The total now stands at 1,839 pending cases. Exactech filed bankruptcy in the first week of November, so all of these new cases were likely pending before the bankruptcy and transferred into the MDL afterwards.

Exactech Class Action November 2024 Update

• The Exactech implant MDL continues to grow. Another 36 new cases were added to the MDL in October. That pushes the total number of pending cases up to 1,806. Next month will be different.  When a defendant files for bankruptcy, as Exactech has, an automatic stay goes into effect. This stay halts most lawsuits and collection efforts against the defendant, asAll Posts the bankruptcy court manages all claims. This means that, in most cases, you cannot continue or initiate a lawsuit against the defendant without special permission from the court.  New cases need to file a claim with the bankruptcy court
• Exactech declared bankruptcy which they have been threatening to do ever since plaintiffs’ lawyers refused their ridiculous offers to settle this litigation.  Plaintiffs should not panic. There is insurance and assets available to victims in bankruptcy.
• The first bankruptcy hearing was on October 30, 2024.
• A status conference on January 9, 2025, will provide updates on the bankruptcy and address any immediate issues, with joint status reports required every 90 days thereafter. All other case deadlines are adjourned indefinitely until the court receives further clarity from the bankruptcy proceedings
• Exactech President and CEO Darin Johnson stated, “We face unsustainable liabilities associated with knee and hip litigation related to the packaging recalls we voluntarily initiated between 2021 and 2022. We take our commitment to patient well-being very seriously and have provided substantial out-of-pocket patient reimbursements and surgeon support for related expenses.”  But the company also “vigorously disputes” the claims.  I don’t know how to reconcile the two.

Exactech Class Action October 2024 Update

• The court has issued an order partially approving and partially denying the parties’ proposed joint bellwether pretrial schedule. The trial for the first bellwether case, Tarloff (Case No. 23-CV-5793), is set to begin on September 29, 2025. Following that, the second bellwether trial, Larson (Case No. 22-CV-6643), is scheduled to start on November 10, 2025.  The lawyers have been directed to consult with Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry on January 9, 2025, regarding the remaining discovery issues. Following that consultation, they are required to submit a proposed pretrial schedule based on the trial dates already set for the first two bellwether cases.
• 100 new cases were added to the Exactech implant recall MDL over the last 30 days. That brings the current number of pending cases in the MDL up to 1,770, with several hundred more cases pending in Florida state court.
• The focus in this litigation is getting ready for the bellwether trials starting in July.  We have been saying that we think there will be a global Exactech settlement before that. But no one is sure of that and lawyers are preparing hard to get the Tarloff case and the others ready to go. There may also be the first Exactech trial in state court this year in December if that trial date holds.

Exactech Class Action September 2024 Update

• As of today there are 1,670 pending cases in the Exactech implant MDL. Only about 50 cases have been added to the MDL over the summer.
• For the first two bellwether trials, we had full schedules but no trial dates.  Now we have them.  Gayle Tarloff’s trial will begin on July 6, 2025.  Geraldine Larson’s trial will begin on September 29, 2025.  Again, it is out prediction – and certainly our hope –  that these lawsuits never go to trial and there is a global Exactech settlement in 2025.
• The next hearing in the litigation will be on October 2, 2024.  The lawyers must file a joint status report by October 2.

Exactech Class Action August 2024 Update

• The Exactech MDL judge has agreed to a joint request by both parties to push back the start of the first pair of bellwether test trials. The first trial has been pushed back a month from July 2025 to August 2025. The second test trial was also pushed back to the next month, from August to September 2025. The reason for the postponement is to allow both sides to conduct additional discovery.
• The Exactech MDL judge agreed to a joint request to modify the sequence of the initial 2 bellwether test trials, which are scheduled to start in June 2025. The change was prompted by another Exactech implant recall that was announced earlier this year, which will impact some of the issues in half of the initial bellwether cases. Swapping the dates of the first two trials will give lawyers additional time for discovery on this new issue.
• Lawyers for both sides in the Exactech class action MDL have filed a joint motion asking the MDL Judge to push back the trial dates and some of the other discovery deadlines in the first 3 bellwether test trials. The first bellwether trial is currently set to begin in June 2025. The parties are asking that date to be pushed back to August 2025 to allow additional time for discovery. Delaying a bellwether trial is never a good thing, but this is only a 60-day postponement. The fact that this is being requested does suggest that the parties might actually be expecting to take some of the bellwether cases to trial in order to get an idea on their potential settlement value.
• July was a very slow month for the Exactech class action MDL. The only thing entered on the MDL docket this month has been appearance notices by attorneys for various plaintiffs. The court has also entered several orders granting attorneys to appear “pro hac vice” which allows attorneys out of state attorneys to appear for the limited purpose of one case.  There was also an transfer order added a handful of new cases.

Exactech Class Action July 2024 Update

Here is the revised schedule as we move towards the first trials next year:

• An Idaho man became one of the most recent plaintiffs to joint the Exactech MDL. According to the Complaint, filed directly in the MDL on July 9, 2024, the plaintiff had an Exactech Truliant knee implant installed in his right knee in June 2020 and just 2 years later the implant had to be surgically removed. The lawsuit alleges that that the premature removal was due to accelerated wear of the polyethylene in the implant (a classic indicator of the Exactech implant defects, although two years is a bit of a surprise).

Exactech Class Action June 2024 Update

Forty-two new cases were added to the Exactech class action MDL. This is the second consecutive month with a significant drop in the number of new cases.

How many Exactech lawsuits have been filed? There are currently 1,622 cases pending or being transferred in the MDL, with 1,328 involving knee products, 277 involving hip products, 10 involving ankle products, and six cases without sufficient information to identify the product.

Additionally, 595 state court cases are pending in the Florida consolidated proceedings in the Eighth Judicial Circuit of Florida, Alachua County, consisting of 417 knee product cases, 170 hip product cases, seven ankle product cases, and one case with undetermined product information.

In Illinois, 24 cases pending in state court are subject to a motion for coordination, and the parties have identified an additional 28 cases pending in other state courts.

Will these Exactech lawsuits ever settle? We are getting closer. The parties have engaged a retired magistrate judge as a mediator and had multiple meetings with settlement demands and offers made.  If you have a potential case, you want to get moving on it before these cases settle.  Setting aside the statute of limitations concerns which are another important reason to call a lawyer today,

Exactech Class Action May 2024 Update

• April was a slow month for the Exactech class action lawsuit. Only 61 new cases were added to the Exactech MDL last month, less than half the monthly volume of new cases that we saw the previous month. There are now 1,462 total cases in the MDL.
• Pursuant to the Court’s Bellwether Trial Case Management Order No. 2, Exactech lawyers on both sides have conferred and proposed David Caputo (1:23-cv-01896), a Texas man, as fourth bellwether trial.Caputo had an Exactech Optetrak knee replacement implant installed during total knee replacement surgery in August 2016. By 2022, Caputo had to have revision surgery due to accelerated wear on the implant caused by defects in product.

Exactech Class Action April 2024 Update

• On April 23, 2024, the MDL judge set trial dates:

Bellwether Trial No. 1 (June 2025):  Gayle Tarloff, 23-CV-5793 (EDNY Pool)

Bellwether Trial No. 2 (August 2025): Geraldine Larson, 22-CV-6643 (EDNY Pool)

Bellwether Trial No. 3 (TBD 2025): Dana Kessler Kramer, 23-CV-658 (National Pool)

For the fourth bellwether trial, the parties are to confer and submit a consensus pick from the plaintiffs in the National Preliminary Pool by May 3, 2024.

Let’s talk about Tarloff since that is the first case up.  In this case, a New York woman had the Optetrak Logic implanted in 2016 in her left knee. She alleges that pain, stiffness, discomfort, and weakness necessitated a revision surgery in 2023.

These trial dates are over a year away, which is undoubtedly frustrating.  But our guess – and our hope –  is that the lion’s share of the 1,400 Exactech lawsuits filed in the MDL will be settled before the trial date in Tarloff.

• Last month, 147 new cases were added to the Exactech implant recall class action MDL. That is the highest monthly volume of new cases in this MDL since last summer. There are now 1,401 total pending cases in the MDL.

Exactech Class Action March 2024 Update

• In our April 2023 update, we discussed efforts to hold TPG Inc., Exactech’s private equity owner, accountable for implant defects in this litigation.  But this week, the court ruled that the plaintiffs failed to prove that TPG had sufficient control over Exactech to be liable for these injuries. Despite TPG’s influence on Exactech’s business strategy, the court found no evidence of complete control. Additionally, delays in product recalls, and insurance coverage for liability claims were deemed within the scope of normal corporate operations. So the court dismissed the claims against TPG. Is this a big deal?  Probably not. But having another deep pocket to contribute to settlement would have been helpful.
• 75 new cases were added to the Exactech recall class action MDL over the last month – the highest monthly volume in over 6 months. There are now 1,244 total pending cases in the MDL.
• With crucial trials scheduled for October 2024 in Florida and June 2025, Exactech’s lawyers want to meet privately (in chambers) with the judges to talk about possibly settling all these cases through global mediation. This would help avoid further expenses from ongoing legal proceedings. They believe discussing things privately with the judges could lead to a more productive outcome. Exactech also plans to ask the judges to consider delaying certain legal deadlines to give everyone a better chance to focus on reaching a settlement.  While some plaintiffs are against delaying the process for a zillion reasons, Exactech argues that this private meeting will actually help by possibly speeding up a resolution to the case.  The take home message from this?  If you have a claim, you need to contact a lawyer today to avoid being left out in the cold of a settlement.

Exactech Class Action February 2024 Update

• Exactech lawyers submitted an update regarding the ongoing bellwether selection process. In the effort to refine the case pool and finalize their selections and exclusions, the parties have determined that additional time is necessary to complete the selection process efficiently and have mutually requested the Court to approve a slight adjustment to the timeline.  Consequently, the parties have reached an agreement on revised deadlines for various stages of the selection process, extending the original timelines to ensure thoroughness in their preparations. These adjusted deadlines are as follows:
  • the decision on whether to waive Lexecon has been moved from February 26, 2024, to March 11, 2024
  • the deadline for strikes within the EDNY Preliminary Pool and the National Pool Preliminary Pool Selection have both been shifted from March 1, 2024, to March 15, 2024
  • the deadline for strikes within the National Preliminary Pool is now April 2, 2024, from the previously set March 15, 2024.

Exactech Class Action January 2024 Update

• There are now 1,090 total cases pending in the Exactech implant recall MDL. That is an increase of only 2 new cases over the last month, but all of the mass tort MDLs posted very small increases in new filings.
• We have some more drilled-down specifics from our prior update. There are 1,151 cases in the MDL, with the majority concerning knee products. Additionally, there are 368 state court cases in Florida and 17 in Illinois, with a motion for coordination pending. The parties involved agree on the need for coordinated discovery across federal and state court actions.
• Exactech wants to slow down the path to trial. Its lawyers propose at least four months between the close of expert discovery and the first bellwether trial to address anticipated Rule 702 briefing and motions in limine, which deal with the admissibility of certain types of evidence.

Exactech Class Action December 2023 Update

• The parties have agreed on the initial bellwether pool cases in Florida, with the final selection process set for December 29, 2023. While the MDL Bellwether Plan has not yet been entered by the court, the parties have exchanged lists of eligible cases and are nearing an agreement.
• There are now 1,088 pending cases in the Exactech class action MDL in federal court. That is a big jump of nearly 200 new cases over the last 30 days.
• Our Exactech lawyers have known from Day One that the Exactech claims are very strong.  We figure that discovery would uncover even more strong evidence.It has. Connecticut orthopedic surgeon Christopher Hutchins, who performed over 350 knee surgeries using the Optetrak finned devices, reported that some of these devices began to loosen within just two to three years, a timeframe he described as “awfully premature” and “extraordinary.” Hutchins recounted a short meeting with Exactech co-founder Bill Petty at a Rhode Island hospital around 2006 or 2007. During this meeting, according to Dr. Hutchins, Petty acknowledged that there was a problem with the device.
• There will be a status conference on December 20th by MDL Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis and Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry. Key agenda items for this session include a thorough review of the Proposed Case Management Order for the Bellwether Trial Selection Process and potential dates for bellwether trials in the Exactech class action lawsuit.

Exactech Class Action November 2023 Update

• Forty new cases were added to the Exactech implant recall MDL in federal court over the last month. That brings the total number of cases in the Exactech MDL up to 882, with another large group of Exactech implant cases pending in the Florida state court MDL.
• In the Exactech class action lawsuit, the magistrate judge issued an amended Case Management Order No. 3, outlining a detailed protocol for the preservation of pathology specimens and explanted medical devices, which are crucial pieces of evidence. The order’s intent is to ensure that such materials are preserved in their condition at the time of explant to the extent practicable, with documented chain of custody, and without alteration prior to agreement on testing procedures.Third-party medical evidence storage providers are to be utilized for storing and handling these materials. If the parties cannot agree on how to handle the materials, they will seek the Court’s guidance. Importantly, the materials remain the property of the Plaintiff at all times.Additionally, the order specifies that if parties are already in possession of any materials, they must disclose this information. Methods for preserving and shipping materials are provided to avoid alteration, and no destructive testing is allowed without mutual agreement. Non-compliance by non-party medical practitioners does not constitute evidence spoliation, provided they followed proper maintenance instructions.Finally, the order clarifies that it does not prevent a party from challenging the preservation method of any materials and applies to all cases within or coordinated with MDL 3044.
• Last week, lawyers for Exactech filed a motion asking the MDL Judge to reconsider his October 12, 2023 Order requiring Exactech to produce 35,000 documents in discovery. What is somewhat strange about the motion, however, is that Exactech states that it has already gone ahead and produced the 35,000 documents at issue. Despite the fact that the issue is now moot, Exactech basically wants the judge to “take back” his finding that these documents were “inappropriately withheld.” According to the motion, this statement is now being “weaponized” by the plaintiffs in the Exactech state court proceedings. Maybe instead of pouting after the fact, Exactech should have just produced the documents in the first place.

Exactech Class Action October 2023 Update

• The Exactech class action MDL is not moving forward as quickly as many plaintiffs would like. The next event in the MDL is not until December 20, 2023, and it’s a conference with a Magistrate Judge, not the actual MDL Judge.
• Nearly 200 new Exactech implant recall lawsuits were added to the class action MDL over the last month. There are now about 850 pending cases in the MDL, plus more in Florida state courts.
• According to a recently filed status report, there are 984 cases in the MDL. 811 of them involve knee implants and 164 involve hip implants. There are 327 cases pending in the Florida state court MDL and the breakdown of hip vs. knee implants is basically the same.
• A significant discovery dispute has recently emerged in the Exactech class action MDL. In a letter to the Court last week, the lead plaintiffs’ lawyers advised that Exactech is refusing to produce certain documents in discovery. Specifically, Exactech has refused to provide plaintiffs with 3 categories of documents: (1) foreign regulatory agency documents relating to recalls and regulatory actions involving Exactech implants in Europe; (2) documents from other litigation against Exactech involving similar claims; and (3) documents relating to a prior merger between Exactech and TPG. Exactech contends that these documents are not relevant to the litigation.

Exactech Class Action September 2023 Update

• There is a whistleblower lawsuit against Exactech in for allegedly violating the False Claims Act by supplying defective knee replacement devices to beneficiaries of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Department of Veterans Affairs.  Importantly to the Exactech class action, the court ruled that if the government had known of the device’s high failure rate, it would have likely refused payment to Exactech. Furthermore, due to Exactech’s awareness of the complaints and potential obligation to notify the FDA, a jury might deduce that Exactech was knowingly in violation of regulations or statutes.The U.S. government argued last week that the whistleblower provisions in the False Claims Act (FCA) do not violate the U.S. Constitution, urging the continuation of a fraud suit about a knee replacement device. Exactech had filed a new motion to dismiss, based on the argument that only the president has the authority to conduct civil litigation on the government’s behalf and that FCA whistleblower suits infringe on Article II of the Constitution.The government pushed back, contending that whistleblowers do not act as federal agents or officers and do not wield the government’s prosecutorial powers.  Exactech’s arguments about separation of powers were also addressed, with the government emphasizing its ability to intervene, dismiss, or even take over whistleblower suits.Exactech is worth maybe $4 billion.  So, ironically, you almost hope the whistleblower case fails so there is more money to pay the personal injury claims
• The Exactech implant recall class action litigation has doubled in size over the summer. Back on Memorial Day this MDL had less than 300 pending cases. Now there are a total of 658 pending cases in the MDL and the monthly volume continues to increase.
• Exactech lawyer son both sides filed last week a joint brief in support of the Revised Joint Florida and MDL Unified Bellwether Trial Plan. This plan has been developed through discussions to align with the Court’s aim to prevent delays in the trials of Florida cases while adhering to the MDL Order’s discovery regulations. The intention is to preserve resources and prevent redundant discovery in this multi-jurisdictional litigation against a relatively small orthopedic device company. The Court’s Initial Bellwether Order provided a framework for these negotiations, and portions of it are integrated into the joint Revised Plan. The MDL judge had previously denied the Joint Bellwether Plan, citing concerns about additional delays. This is not a bad thing.  You want a judge who wants to push trial dates forward. That is how you get to an eventual Exactech settlement.  But the lawyers want to have a joint status conference with both the MDL judge and the state court judge clarify the challenges faced in discovery and coordination as well as the design of the joint bellwether plans. As the motion points out, it is pretty extraordinary that both parties are looking to jointly modify the schedule.  Normally, it is the defendants’ lawyers trying to stall and the plaintiffs’ attorneys pushing for a quick trial date.

Exactech Class Action August 2023 Update

• Yesterday, the Judge in the Exactech class action MDL granted a motion to compel filed by the plaintiffs last month based on Exactech’s refusal to produce all of the internal documents requested in discovery. Exactech claimed that the document requests were overly broad and too burdensome. The plaintiff countered by narrowing the scope of their request somewhat and the Judge ultimately ordered Exactech to produce 123,321 documents that were responsive to the revised search terms.
• According to the most recent monthly report from the JPML, there are now a total of 567 pending cases in the Exactech implant recall MDL. That is a huge jump up from last month when there were only 395 pending cases. It also makes Exactech stand out as the only mass tort MDL which saw a high volume of new cases filed over the last month.
• In a joint status report to Judge Garaufis on August 11th, Exactech lawyers report 422 recall lawsuits in the federal MDL.  Most are knee implant lawsuits, but around one-fifth of the claims are hip and ankle cases.  The state court cases are also moving forward, sometimes outpacing the federal class action. There are 272 pending Exactech lawsuits in Florida’s state courts, where the company’s U.S. main office is located, giving state court jurisdiction. There are also scattered cases elsewhere, 14 cases in Illinois and another 23 claims in various state courts.
• Lawyers for both sides in the Exactech class action MDL in federal court have submitted a proposed plan for the bellwether trials. The proposal calls for the Exactech MDL in federal court to coordinate its bellwether trials with the Exactech MDL in Florida state court. If the plan is approved, the bellwether trials in the federal MDL would only involve knee implant cases, while the bellwether trials in Florida would be hip implant cases.

Exactech Class Action July 2023 Update

• Only four new cases were added to the Exactech implant recall class action over the last 30 days. That marks the lowest number of new cases in a month since the Exactech MDL was created almost a year ago. Why the slowdown? This is most likely just a reflection of plaintiffs’ lawyers filing fewer cases in the middle of the summer rather than any underlying issues in the litigation. Expect another slow month before things start to pick up again in the fall. There are now 395 cases pending in the Exactech MDL.
• Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry held a hearing late last month. But it was a slow month for MDL developments.
• A lawsuit against Exactech on behalf of third-party payers (such as insurance companies) who paid for the company’s defective implants has recently been dismissed. The Exactech MDL judge dismissed the Complaint because it failed to allege the appropriate risk of future harm, such as additional costs. However, the dismissal is without prejudice, which means that the plaintiff can file again within 30 days with an amended complaint.

Exactech Class Action June 2023 Update

• A dozen more Exactech implant failure lawsuits were added to the MDL over the last month. There are 136 total cases pending in the Exactech class action MDL in the federal court, with another 90 or so cases simultaneously pending in Florida state courts.
• New implant failure cases continue to get filed in the Exactech recall class action MDL. Just yesterday (May 31, 2023), a new case, Nazario v. Exactech Inc., et al. (1:23-cv-03998), was filed in the MDL using the Short Form Complaint. The plaintiff, Julio Nazario, is a New York resident who had the Optetrak knee replacement implant system installed in November 2011. The implant was surgically removed in February 2022 after the device’s premature failure caused swelling, pain, and loss of motion.

Exactech Class Action May 2023 Update

• We saw another big block of over 80 Exactech implant recall lawsuits added to the class action MDL over the last month. This follows up on last month’s spike of over 90 new cases, and pushes the total number of plaintiffs in the Exactech class action to 373 (not including those cases in Florida state courts).
• The pace of the Exactech class action lawsuit in pretrial discovery has been slow.  Records are critical in a case like this.  But no documents from the six custodians identified in January 2023 having been collected yet. Exactech identified the six custodians and search terms “as a starting point” on January 22, but on February 3, they were not prepared to discuss whether they had collected the six custodial files. Despite multiple emails and conferences since then, Exactech has only agreed to add six more custodians, bringing the total to twelve. The slow pace of discovery is causing frustration for the plaintiffs who want these cases to move forward to bellwether trials because trials expedite the settlement process one way or the other.
• We need to protect the evicence of the problems with the Exactech devices that led to the recall.  Last week, the Exactech MDL Judge issued a new Case Management Order that lays out a system for the collection and preservation of medical evidence such pathology samples and explanted implant devices. The Order requires all medical evidence of this type to be handed over to a third-party medical storage provider.

Exactech Class Action April 2023 Update

We wrote last month about plaintiffs’ efforst to impose liability on a private equity sponsor of Exactech against TPG Inc., Osteon Holdings, Inc., Osteon Merger Sub, Inc., and Osteon Intermediate Holdings II, Inc. (collectively, “TPG”).  Their lawyers wrote a letter on March 30, 2023 to MDL Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis, asking for a hearing to dismiss the cases because they were not involved design, manufacture, packaging, or sale of any Exactech device.

Plaintiffs’ Exactech lawyers seek to pierce the corporate veil. To state a veil-piercing claim, a plaintiff must allege that the parent’s “exclusive domination and control to the point that the [subsidiary] no longer has legal or independent significance of its own” and “the corporate structure caused fraud or similar injustice.”  The letter claims Plaintiffs have not state a veil-piercing claim for three reasons.

Firstly, defendants argue that the plaintiffs obfuscate the corporate structure to try to connect TPG to Exactech—ignoring the Osteon entities between Exactech and TPG Inc. Second, they say none of Plaintiffs’ allegations are sufficient to prove the “domination and control” required to state a veil-piercing claim. And third, Plaintiffs have not even tried to allege that Exactech “was formed or used by its corporate parents to achieve an improper purpose” or “exist[s] for no other purpose than as a vehicle for fraud.”

TPG argues that Plaintiffs’ claims were successfully asserted against it would upend the entire private equity industry (which might not exactly terrify middle America).  TPG says it would be unprecedented.  But TPG’s activity in the nuances of Exactech might be unprecedented, too.

Again, the whole purpose of this exercise is to make sure there is money to pay Exactech settlement amounts and jury payouts given the size of this litigation and the relative small size of Exactech.

Growing Litigation

This month, we witnessed a significant surge in new Exactech implant recall lawsuits, with 111 new cases either filed or transferred into the Exactech class action lawsuit over the past 30 days. This marks the largest monthly increase since the litigation’s inception, raising the total number of pending cases to 290. This likely signifies the beginning of an ongoing trend for the remainder of the year. Additionally, over 80 Exactech cases are pending in a Florida state court MDL.

Exactech Class Action March 2023 Update

• The Exactech implant recall class action added 47 new cases over the last monthly period. That is an increase of over 20%, the biggest monthly increase since the litigation started, and it brings the total number of plaintiffs in the Exactech MDL up to 179.
• Post on the effort to expand the defendants responsible for the Exactech recall
• New Exactech lawsuits continue to be filed.  A Maine woman filed a new lawsuit alleging that her Exactech knee device, implanted during two knee replacement surgeries in 2012, was defective and caused permanent and debilitating injuries. She underwent a right total knee replacement on January 30, 2012, and a left total knee replacement on October 1, 2012 at the St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston, Maine. The Exactech Knee Device implanted during the surgeries included various components such as the Exactech Tibial Insert, Tibial Tray, and Femoral Component. In 2018, she required revision surgery due to polyethylene liner wear with resulting osteolysis, aseptic loosening of the tibial component, and development of complex regional pain syndrome. She suffers daily knee pain and discomfort, gait impairment, poor balance, and difficulty walking.

Exactech Class Action February 2023 Update

• On May 10, 2023,  the Judge in the Exactech recall class action MDL will hold a science day during which lawyers for each side will make presentations to educate the court about the various scientific issues and evidence involved in the cases. The Exactech MDL now has 132 pending cases.
• The Exactech MDL Judge recently finalized the process that allows all future Exactech implant lawsuits to be filed directly in the MDL. Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel also launched a new website (www.exactechmdlfilings.com) was also launched by Plaintiffs’ Liaison Counsel to give the public access to key documents relating to the litigation, such as Court Orders and attorney contact information. Judge Garaufis also has plans to hold a Science Day (we will explain Science Day in detail when the date is chosen) and has asked the parties to submit a joint proposal this week for the time frame and logistics of that event.

Exactech Class Action Lawsuit January 2023 Update

• We now have a class action lawsuit pending for the Exactech recall in New York.  The class action is the result of Exactech lawyers filing a motion with the JPML asking for the creation of a new Exactech class action lawsuit. This is a big step towards an eventual settlement.
• In mid-December 2023,  the judge in the Exactech recall MDL named 27 lawyers to the plaintiffs’ leadership committees for the litigation. There will be an Executive Committee, a Steering Committee, lead counsel, and liaison counsel.  So we are now moving forward.
• The class action is the result of Exactech lawyers filing a motion with the JPML asking for the creation of a new Exactech class action lawsuit. This is a big step towards an eventual settlement.
• In mid-January 2023, parties for both sides in the Exactech recall MDL in federal court submitted a joint status report to Judge Garaufis before the status conference. The status report advised that the consolidated proceedings in Florida state court now have 86 pending cases, and discovery is starting to get underway. Master discovery requests were served last month, and the deposition of Exactech’s chief medical officer, Dr. Sharat Kusuma, is scheduled for February.

Exactech

Exactech is an international medical device company specializing in surgical implants used in joint replacements (e.g., knee, hip, and ankle). Exactech also makes surgical tools and technologies for orthopedic surgeons.

Exactech Optetrak Knee Implants

Problems With Optetrak Knee Implants

Exactech Class Action Lawsuit

Compensation for Recalled Knee Implants

FAQs: Exactech Recall Lawsuits

Predictions for Exactech settlement amounts at this stage are dicey.  It also does not factor the concerns that Exactech is not a huge company and it may not have enough insurance to pay full compensation for these claims.   That concern has continued to rise as this litigation progresses. So take these settlement amount projections with a grain of salt. (And all of this was written before Exactech declared bankruptcy in October 2024.)

That said, there is some history to make prediction.  They are based on historical settlement amounts in defective knee replacement lawsuits and the specifics of this Exactech recall.  There lawsuits clearly have a great deal of jury appeal.