Lawsuit Information Center
Our lawyers are handling Paraquat IUD removal lawsuits in all 50 states. These lawsuits allege the Paragard intrauterine device breaks upon removal because it is made with inflexible plastic and degrades before the device expires.
This page provides an update on the Paragard class action lawsuit and speculates on the Paragard settlement amounts.
You can reach our lawyers at 800-883-8082 or get a free online consultation. You pay nothing unless you get a recovery for the injuries related to your Paragard breaking during removal.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit
Over one thousand women have filed a Paragard IUD lawsuit claiming that they were injured when a design defect in the popular IUD caused it to fracture during removal and leave foreign objects inside their bodies.
The Paragard lawsuits in the federal courts have been consolidated into a new Paragard MDL in the Northern District of Georgia. The crux of the class action Paragard suit is that the device is prone to break inside a woman’s body because the IUD is not sufficiently flexible.
In this post, we give a 2023 Paragard lawsuit update. Our lawyers also speculate on how much a Paragard lawsuit might be worth if the litigation is resolved in a global settlement with the manufacturers.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates 2023
September 23, 2023 Update: Last week, a discovery dispute was adjudicated by MDL Judge Leigh Martin May. The purpose of this hearing was to address a dispute between the parties concerning the Cooper Defendants’ disclosure of adverse event documents and complaint file documents.
During the hearing, the plaintiffs requested a specific end date for this production. As a resolution, the Court established a firm deadline of 75 days from that date, initiating rolling production within three weeks. The Court emphasized that unless unusual circumstances arise, failure by the Defendants to meet this deadline will have consequences.
September 18, 2023 Update: The Paragard class action MDL has averaged 63 new cases per month since the start of 2023, bringing the current total of pending cases in the MDL up to 2,147 as of this week. There were 1,577 Paragard cases at the start of the year.
September 7, 2023 Update: The MDL judge ordered the lawyers to develop a proposed case management order regarding expert-witness testimony prior to those depositions to avoid the endless back-and-forth battles over how the depositions are to be conducted.
September 5, 2023 Update: The plaintiffs have asked the court to require the defendants to provide a list of documents that were examined by a fact witness within 48 hours preceding their deposition. This motion was denied.
September 1, 2023 Update: The first bellwether trial in the Paragard MDL is now set for October 28, 2024. The newly revised scheduling order issued by Judge May this week set that trial date and extended the dates for discovery and pretrial motions. Fact discovery in the bellwether pool cases will now close in February 2024 and expert discovery will last until May 2024. It is hard to understand why the first bellwether trial is happening next October instead of this October, considering this MDL has been pending for about 5 years already.
August 17, 2023 Update: There are now 2,094 total cases pending in the Paragrad class action MDL. Only 31 new cases were added to the MDL over the last month, which is the lowest monthly total for this mass tort in over a year. The last month has been slow for new cases in mass torts across the board, however, so this is probably not an indication of any sort of trend.
August 1, 2023 Update: Around 100 cases in the Paragard class action litigation are going to be dismissed in the next few weeks for failure to comply with certain mandatory requirements such as submitting a Plaintiff Fact Sheet. The total number of plaintiffs currently facing dismissal is 132. The majority of these plaintiffs have lost touch with their attorneys and will almost certainly have their cases dismissed.
July 18, 2023 Update: The Paragard class action MDL added another 53 cases over the last month. That brings the total number of pending cases in the MDL up to 2,063 and it marks the 14th month in a row that the Paragard class action has added at least 40 new cases. Bellwether trials are expected to begin early next year.
June 30, 2023 Update: The Court’s PFS CMOs required all plaintiffs involved in MDL No. 2974 to submit a completed Plaintiff Fact Sheet (PFS) and signed authorizations to the Defendants by November 4, 2022. So… long ago. There are always mass tort plaintiffs who bring claims that either do not have viable claims or simply decide not to pursue a lawsuit. In this case, 132 Paragard plaintiffs are in that boat.
The deadline to submit the required information or provide an explanation for not doing so has passed and the MDL judge will likely dismiss those claims. This allows a greater focuse on those with serious cases which may have pave the way for a future global settlement.
June 19, 2023 Update: This litigation is moving slowly. But the statute of limitations is an issue if you are looking to file a Paragard lawsuit in 2023. The message: if you have a claim, call a lawyer – us, whoever – now.
June 16, 2023 Update: 44 new Paragard IUD injury cases were added to the MDL over the last month, bringing the total number of plaintiffs up to 2,010. Around 500 new cases have been added to the MDL since the start of year.
June 2, 2023 Update: The initial pool of Paragard bellwether discovery cases is close to being finalized. Over the next weeks, these cases will go through an accelerated fact discovery phase involving depositions of the plaintiffs and other fact witnesses. The information obtained from this discovery phase will then be used to narrow down the pool to 6 cases.
May 15, 2023 Update: The Paragard class action MDL has posted steady growth since the start of this year, averaging around 50-60 new cases per month. This last month, however, we saw a big spike in the volume of new Paragard cases. 186 new cases were added to the Paragard MDL over the last 30 days, bringing the current total up to 1,966.
May 1, 2023 Update: At a recent court conference, Judge May closed a hearing expressing optimism that the Paragard settlement mediator, Gino Brogdon Sr., will be able to push settlement talks forward and encouraged the parties to get moving toward that end. This makes us optimistic but that optimism is chilled by how far away the first trial is. Because trial dates put on the pressure that leads defendants to offer reasonable settlement amounts.
April 18, 2023 Update: In the Paragard class action MDL, 64 new cases were added, propelling the total number of plaintiffs to 1,780. The ongoing trend portends the prospect of crossing the 2,000 mark before the year’s end. Bellwether trials, frustratingly, remain 18 months away.
March 15, 2023 Update: 34 new plaintiffs with pending cases were added to the Paragard class action MDL over the last 30 days. Last month, the MDL posted its second-highest monthly volume ever with 105 new cases, so this is a sharp dropoff. The total number of pending Paragard IUD lawsuits in the MDL is 1,716.
February 25, 2023 Update: The judge presiding over the federal Paragard IUD lawsuits has outlined the process for selecting a pool of 10 representative cases to be eligible for the first bellwether trials in 2024. The plaintiffs will nominate 15 cases for the bellwether pool, and that list will be narrowed down to ten through a series of strikes and challenges by each side. These ten cases will go through case-specific discovery, and three will be selected for the first bellwether trials that will begin in Georgia in March 2024.
What is a bellwether trial? A bellwether trial is used in mass tort litigation to determine how juries are likely to react to evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout thousands of cases. A small group of representative cases is prepared for early trial dates to guide future trials and potential settlements.
February 17, 2023 Update: Over the last month, 105 new lawsuits were added to the Paragard class action MDL. That marks the second-highest number of new cases in a month since the MDL began, bringing the currently pending cases up to 1,682. There is no indication that this steady case volume will do anything but continue this year.
February 5, 2023 Update: The bellwether process in the Paragard MDL remains a work in progress 25 months after the MDL class action was established. A status conference was held before Judge May this week. Still, instead of finalizing the bellwether process, she simply offered “guidance” to the parties on their competing proposals for how the bellwether program should be handled. In the meantime, corporate depositions are getting underway for the primary defendants, Cooper Surgical and Teva Pharmaceuticals.
January 25, 2023 Update: Looking for some good news in the Paragard litigation? A retired Fulton County, Georgia judge, M. Gino Brogdon Sr., was appointed by the Paragard class action judge to serve as a settlement mediator.
We don’t think Teva and Cooper Surgical are on the phone with this mediator right now trying to set up settlement talks. A trial is too far away for the defendants to feel any urgency to settle these lawsuits. Brogdon’s appointment was made by the Court and not at the parties’ request, so this is not a sign that a settlement might be in the works already. That said, any direction in the settlement path for victims who have already waited too long for compensation is good.
January 17, 2023 Update: There are 1,577 claims in the Paragard class action lawsuit in MDL-2974. Forty-nine new Paragard suits were added to the MDL over the last month. This is consistent with the average monthly volume we saw throughout last year.
January 9, 2023 Update: 934 adverse incident reports involving fracture of the Paragard IUD during removal were reported to the FDA Adverse Event Report Database in 2022. This is three times the number of events reported for the Paragard just two years ago, and it suggests that we could see continued growth in the number of Paragard product liability cases in the MDL in 2023. It also shows – importantly – that Paragard removal breakage is more common than the defendants claim.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates – December 2022
The Paragard IUD class action MDL added 30 new cases this month, bringing the total number of pending cases up to 1,528. This is less than the average of 60 new cases a month we have seen for Paragard since the start of 2022, so it could be an early indication that things are slowing down. In any event, 2022 has been a significant growth year for the Paragard class action MDL. At the start of the year, only 734 cases were pending in the MDL, so it has more than doubled since then.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates – November 2022
We have a Paragard trial date: January 2024. So it is not soon! But it is a trial date which is a sloooowww step in the right direction.
The initial pool of potential bellwether cases will be finalized by the end of this year. The candidate IUD lawsuits will go through fact discovery until July 28, 2023. Expert discovery will follow with the deadline of October 30, 2023. Daubert motions seeking to exclude expert opinions will be due November 7, 2023.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates – September 2022
- There is also a new scheduling order in the Paragard IUD class action lawsuit. This scheduling order outlines the time frame for events leading to the first bellwether trial in January 2024. The initial pool of potential bellwether cases will be finalized by the end of this month. The candidate cases will go through fact discovery until July 28, 2023. Expert discovery will follow with the deadline of October 30, 2023. Daubert motions seeking to exclude expert opinions will be due November 7, 2023.
- The Paragard MDL continues to grow at a steady pace. Over the last month, one hundred thirty-three new Paragard IUD lawsuits were transferred into the MDL. That brings the total number of pending Paragard cases up to 1,447. Just a few months ago, there were fewer than 1,000 cases in the MDL. Meanwhile, the first Paragard bellwether trial has been set for January 2024.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates – September 2022
We finally have a trial date in the Paragard MDL. But it is not soon.
At the last monthly status conference, the MDL Judge stated from the bench that she plans to set the first Paragard bellwether trial for January 24. An order finalizing this date and detailing how many bellwether trials there will be is expected soon. Getting bellwether trial results would be the first step toward a global settlement in these lawsuits.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates – August 2022
Another 68 new Paragard lawsuits were added to the Paragard IUD class action MDL over the last month. The total number of Paragard lawsuits in 2022 pending in the MDL is now 1,314.
Unfortunately, after 19 months, we still do not have bellwether trials scheduled or even a selection process setup. However, there are some positive indications as critical depositions from defendants Teva and Cooper Surgical are moving forward this month.
Paragard Class Action Lawsuit Updates – July 2022
July 18, 2022: A total of 51 new Paragard IUD lawsuits were filed or transferred into the Paragard MDL over the last 30-day period (June 15 to July 15). The total number of active cases pending the Paragard MDL is now 1,246. An average of 86 new cases have been added to the MDL each month since May, a significant uptick in the rate of new cases compared to the first 18 months of the MDL. Last week, the MDL judge finally approved the long-awaited plaintiff fact sheets and gave all plaintiffs 120 to submit completed sheets with supporting documents.
July 8, 2022: Over the last 60 days, we saw a significant uptick in the number of new Paragard IUD lawsuits, with an average of 22 cases a week getting transferred into the class action MDL. I didn’t think the furious pace of new Paragard lawsuits would continue. Over the last two weeks, zero new cases have been added to MDL. So while many victims are still looking to file a Paragard lawsuit, the pace is slowing. The MDL judge held her monthly status conference on June 21, 2022. It was a housekeeping conference. Nothing significant was decided. There have been no orders docketed since then.
June 2022
After moving along very slowly over the last two years, the Paragard MDL was one of the most active mass torts in the previous month. Between May 15 and June 15, 177 new Paragard lawsuits were transferred into or directly filed in the MDL, bringing the current pending case count up to 1,195. This was one of the most significant increases in new cases in any MDL. It is also a stark contrast to last month, when we only saw five new Paragard lawsuits added to the MDL. Our lawyers are not exactly sure what accounts for this sudden uptick in new Parargard IUD lawsuits. It’s possibly due to big blocks of cases filed by various lawyers after waiting on them for a long time.
Meanwhile, at the last monthly status conference, the MDL Judge heard arguments on the Plaintiffs’ challenges to the documents produced by the defendants in response to discovery. Paragard attorneys also addressed the status of the enabling order for the Plaintiff Fact Sheet on both sides.
May 2022
Plaintiffs’ Paragard lawyers are itching to get one of the 1,018 Paragard lawsuits filed into a courtroom. If successful, trials lead to larger Paragard settlement amounts, and those settlements will come faster. This is the goal of the litigation from the plaintiffs’ lawyer’s perspective. To get there, the attorneys must get through the pre-trial discovery process to show Judge May that the parties are ready for trial. Hopefully, the status conference before the judge pushes that ball forward next week.
The pace of the litigation has slowed, which might help push the ball toward settlement. Our Paragard attorneys still get calls regularly from women who have had their IUD break during removal. But new Paragard lawsuit filings in the class action have dropped considerably.
Throughout the first 16 days of May, only five new Paragard IUD defect lawsuits have been transferred into the MDL class action. Only two new Paragard cases were added in April. Does this mean that the lion’s share of Paragard injury victims has already called a lawyer? It might. Check back in next month and let’s see if the trend continues.
April 2022
The next monthly status conference in the Paragard MDL will be held next week. The Paragard class action lawsuit continues to grow. Quietly. If the current pace of new lawsuits continues, the revised number of total pending cases in the MDL could surpass 1,000.
March 2022
There are now almost 900 Paragard lawsuits in the MDL. On March 22, 2022 (today as of this writing), Judge Leigh Martin May will hold the March status conference in the Zantac MDL today. Agenda items include: (a) an update on the number of pending Paragard IUD lawsuits in federal and state courts, (b) a timeline on draft fact sheets, and (c) responses to the plaintiffs’ first set of requests for the production of documents from the defendants.
February 2022
The Paragard class action MDL continues to take shape as the MDL judge is expected to rule on a discovery dispute over specific questions on the proposed plaintiffs’ fact sheets. Defense lawyers objected to certain sections of the fact sheet, and judge May held a hearing on the matter at the end of January. A ruling on the objections is expected shortly.
December 2022
The Paragard MDL now has a total of 736 pending cases. On December 14, 2021, the MDL Judge held the final status conference of the year to address various housekeeping matters, including the format of the Short Form Complaints for incoming cases and the status of related cases awaiting transfer into the MDL. At the next status conference, the parties are expected to present a proposed Plaintiff Fact Sheet and/or Plaintiff Profile Forms for approval.
- October 2021 Paragard Class Action Update (good news)
About the Paragard Lawsuits
The Paragard is a type of birth control known as an intrauterine device (IUD). The Paragard is a Y-shaped device about the size of a quarter with a copper coil around the center. It has a plastic frame made of polyethylene and barium sulfate.
The IUD is placed at the base of the uterus by a doctor, and it remains there for as long as ten years, providing continuous protection against pregnancy. The Paragard was designed to be easily removed by pulling on a removal cord at the doctor’s office.
Unfortunately, the Paragard copper IUD design has a hidden defect that has led to problems during the removal process for many women. The plastic arms at the base of the Paragard are supposed to flex upwards when the device is pulled out for removal. In many cases, however, the plastic arms become rigid and break off inside the patient during removal. This results in sharp pieces of plastic inside the woman’s uterus.
Accordingly, the plaintiffs in the Paragard class action lawsuit are all women with a Paragard implant that later broke while still in their bodies. The IUD breaks because the flawed design does not provide sufficient flexibility. Specifically, Paragard lawsuits allege that Paragard raw plastic T units failed to meet the minimum flexibility requirements with the IUD’s approved expiration date (i.e., shelf life) before installing the copper sleeves. So the arms become more rigid over time, and these devices are marketed as a long-term solution.
Failure to Warn of Paragard Complications
There is also a failure to warn component to the Paragard class action lawsuit. Plaintiffs claim the defendants knew Paragard could cause serious harm to women due to its propensity to break in utero or during removal but failed to adequately warn doctors and patients of the risk. No one is arguing for a Paragard recall. Just warn doctors and women of what you know about the dangers.
How could the defendants have known of the risks of Paragard? Between 2009 and 2021, the defendants received reports of over 2000 Paragard breaks. This information never became a meaningful warning for doctors and patients.
The key word there is a meaningful warning of this Paragard side effect. Paragard lawsuits allege the defendants intentionally concealed the severity and frequency of the risks associated with Paragard’s removal. Why? The same reason any medical device company hides the risks of their product: a warning would decrease sales and decrease profits.
Paragard Class Action
As the number of women who suffered health consequences as a result of the Paragard fracturing during removal, they began to file lawsuits against the manufacturers of Paragard – Teva Pharmaceuticals and CooperSurgical. The number of Paragard lawsuits around the country was enough to create a new Paragard MDL. The Paragard MDL now has almost 1800 cases in the Northern District of Georgia as of April 2023.
Paragard IUD Lawsuits Will Be Resolved in a Global Settlement
The Paragard lawsuits will eventually be resolved with a global settlement. This is how almost all product mass torts are resolved that are not dismissed by a judge. The Paragard MDL was formed at the end of 2020 and new Paragard cases continued to get filed and added to the MDL. The MDL judge will oversee a consolidated “group discovery” process between the plaintiffs and defendants. The focus of the discovery process will be on the design flaw in the Paragard and what the defendants knew.
Federal Courthouse, Atlanta, GA
When the process of consolidated discovery in the Paragard MDL is completed, the litigation will move into the bellwether trial phase. This is where jury trials are conducted in a select handful of individual Paragard chosen by the parties.
The results of these initial bellwether “test trials” significantly impact the litigation. They usually dictate how quickly the defendants will negotiate a global settlement and how much the settlement payouts will be.
What Will a Global Paragard Settlement Look Like?
The best way to understand how global settlements work in the MDL process is to consider a simplified hypothetical example. Let’s say Acme Company is defending 10,000 lawsuits in an MDL. The class action complaint alleges that its medical device was defective and caused patients to suffer internal organ damage. The Paragard class action MDL goes through 18 months of discovery. At the close of discovery, 20 plaintiffs are selected by the parties for bellwether trials. The plaintiffs pick ten, and Acme decides the other 10.
Over the next six months, jury trials are completed in three of these ten cases. The first case results in a $5,000,000 verdict. The second case (one of the defense picks) results in a defense verdict. The third case ends with a $1,200,000 verdict for the plaintiff. Based on these results, Acme decides to settle the remaining 10,000. After six months of negotiation, a global settlement agreement is approved by the MDL judge.
Under the settlement, Acme agrees to pay $1 billion to settle all 10,000 pending cases. If divided evenly, this would result in a payout of $100,000 per plaintiff. But the settlement creates a complicated tiered system. The settlement plan ranks each plaintiff based on the severity of their injuries (and other factors). Plaintiffs ranked in the highest tiers get larger payouts, and those in the lower settlement tiers get smaller payouts.
Estimated Settlement Payout in Paragard Lawsuits
It is way too early to know with any degree of certainty how much the settlement payout in the Paragard lawsuit might be. When there is a trial in January 2024, we will get a much more focused idea of what Paragard settlement compensation might be. It is not too early, however, to make an educated guess about the potential settlement amounts of the average case in the class action might be based on settlement payouts in prior mass tort cases with similar allegations.
Based on global settlements in prior mass tort cases involving defective medical devices and internal damages, we believe that Paragard cases in the highest settlement tier will have a value between $100,000-$380,000. Paragard plaintiffs in the second tier can probably expect payouts between $40,000-$75,000. There will probably be a lower, third tier of plaintiffs who get smaller payouts ranging from $10,000-$30,000.
Settlement Tier Estimated Settlement
Tier I $100,000-$380,000
Tier II $40,000-$75,000
Tier III $10,000-$30,000
What Paragard settlements will have the higher payouts? If a young woman becomes infertile, those will be solid cases, and the likely settlement payout for that victim will likely exceed the high range of this compensation estimate. Indeed, you would expect a successful jury verdict in a Paragard infertility case to be in the millions, particularly for a woman who did not have children before getting the Paragard IUD.
It is impossible to emphasize how speculative these Paragard individual settlement compensation payouts are. Because all these projections make the leap of assuming that a judge will allow the Paragard lawsuits to go to trial. Before these cases ever get to a jury, the MDL judge will have to decide whether there is enough scientific proof that a reasonable jury could accept.
Is this a challenge in the Paragard lawsuits? It is a challenge in most mass tort lawsuits. What your gut tells you and what science tells you are often two different things.
It is impossible at this stage of the game to access the scientific strength of the lawsuits. But with so many women with the same or similar complaints, you have to think the science will support what we see.
So our Paragard attorneys believe the science supports the plaintiffs’ claims that the design was defective (and the defendants knew it and did not tell anyone).
Hiring a Paragard Lawyer
Each victim who has filed a Paragard class action lawsuit had a Paragard break while it was still inside her body. If this happened to you, call a Paragard lawyer. You can reach us at 800-883-8082 or get a free online consultation. You pay nothing unless you get a recovery.