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West Palm Beach personal injury attorney Joseph R. Johnson of Babbitt & Johnson helped cinch a $3.6 million verdict in bellwether multidistrict litigation involving vascular filters.

Johnson handled most of the trial work in the case that returned a multimillion-dollar verdict from a jury in Phoenix. As a member of the plaintiff's steering committee, he's helping wrangle hundreds of lawsuits over medical devices designed to prevent fatal blood clots.

“This was a medical device put on the market without safety testing,” Johnson said. “Real people in the real world were subjects in a massive experiment and suffered terribly.”

The case is part of a rising wave of litigation alleging faulty vascular filters caused death and injury.

The suits target manufacturers like Miami Lakes-based Cordis Corp., a former Johnson & Johnson subsidiary sold to Cardinal Health Inc. for about $2 billion in 2015. That company has 21 other cases pending against it in state court in California.

Cordis is one of at least three major manufacturers facing widespread litigation hinged on claims IVC filters punctured veins, migrated to other parts of the body or caused organ damage and other major medical complications.

Indiana-based Cook Medical and Georgia-based Bard Medical Division face about 5,800 IVC filter lawsuits in federal court. Thousands of pending cases have been consolidated into two MDLs with lawsuits against Cook moved to Indiana and Bard's playing out in Arizona.

Johnson's work helped secure a major victory against C.R. Bard Inc. and Bard Peripheral Vascular Inc. for clients bringing a medical device products liability claim alleging the companies' G2 inferior vena cava filter caused major injury.

“The device failed miserably,” Johnson said. “The short story is this was a human experiment that went terribly wrong.”

IVC filters are umbrella-like devices that are supposed to stop blood clots from moving further in the bloodstream. They are meant to protect the heart and lungs by preventing fatal blood clots from reaching these organs.

However, mounting lawsuits claim manufacturing defects endanger patients by making the filters prone to fracture, disintegration and migration through the bloodstream.

Johnson said a regulatory loophole allows manufacturers to bring devices to market without proper testing.

Food and Drug Administration regulations allow manufacturers to sign documentation assuring new products are “as safe or safer” than similar devices already on the market.

“The process is predicated upon what I call the honor code,” Johnson said. “If a device manufacturer does not report in an honest way to the FDA, then the system falls apart, which is what we believe happened in this case with this filter.”

Johnson client Sherr-Una Booker learned the hard way, according to her court pleadings.

Booker received an IVC implant in 2007, but the device shifted out of place. Its struts perforated the walls of her vena cava, a large vein that carries blood to the heart. It then punctured her heart and organs as it broke apart.

“These filters were migrating out of position, tilting into the largest vein into the human body,” Johnson said.

He teamed with Atlanta solo practitioner Robin Lourie; Robert Roll of Atlanta's Watkins Lourie Roll & Chance; Mark O'Connor of Phoenix's Gallagher & Kennedy; Ramon Lopez of Newport Beach, California's Lopez McHugh; and Julia Reed Zaic of Laguna Beach, California's Heaviside Reed Zaic.

They persuaded a federal jury in Arizona to side with Booker in the first bellwether trial over thousands of complaints.

Jurors awarded $3.6 million: $1.6 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages.

Defense counsel included Richard North and Kate Helm of Nelson Mullins, and and James Condo of Snell & Wilmer. They did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.

BOOKER V. BARD

Case: Sherr-Una Booker v. C.R. Bard and Bard Peripheral Vascular

Case no.: MDL 15-02641-PHX-DGC and CV-16-00474-PHX-DGC

Description: Products liability

Filing date: Feb. 22, 2016

Verdict date: March 30, 2018

Judge: U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell

Plaintiffs attorneys: Joseph R. Johnson, Babbitt & Johnson, West Palm Beach; Ramon R. Lopez, Lopez McHugh; Mark O'Connor, Gallagher & Kennedy; Julia Zaic, Heaviside Reed Zaic; David DeGreeff, Wagstaff & Cartmell; Hadley Matarazzo, Faraci Lange; and Josh Mankoff, Lopez McHugh

Defense attorneys: Richard North and Kate Helm, Nelson Mullins, and James Condo, Snell & Wilmer

Verdict amount: $3.6 million