Plaintiffs who brought thousands of lawsuits over IVC, or inferior vena cava, filters got off to a rough start on Thursday when a federal jury came out with a defense verdict in the first trial over the medical implants.

After three weeks of trial, a jury in Evansville, Indiana, found that the design of Cook Medical's Celect IVC filter wasn't defective—the only claim remaining in a case brought by a Florida woman after a federal judge wiped out most of her claims prior to trial.

“We are pleased with this outcome. Our IVC filters are clinically successful devices critical to patient well-being,” said Mark Breedlove, vice president of the vascular division at Cook Medical, which was represented at trial by a team of Faegre Baker Daniels attorneys led by Indianapolis partners Andrea Pierson and Jessica Cox, and Minneapolis partner Charles Webber.

More than 2,800 lawsuits against Cook have been coordinated in multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Richard Young of the Southern District of Indiana. IVC filters are used to prevent pulmonary embolisms caused when blood clots travel to an artery in the lungs. Other manufacturers have been named in lawsuits, including 2,900 against C.R. Bard Inc. that have been coordinated in multidistrict litigation in Arizona federal court.

Lead plaintiffs attorneys in the Cook Medical cases included Dallas attorney Ben Martin, David Matthews of Matthews & Associates in Houston and Michael Heaviside of Heaviside Reed Zaic in Washington, D.C.

Martin, of the Law Offices of Ben C. Martin, said the verdict was case-specific and didn't anticipate it to influence the next trials in the MDL.

“This was a defense pick,” he said. “There were allegations by the defense of a lot of prior medical history that caused this perforation to occur.”

Heaviside had a similar response. “The case was confounded by many issues unique to this particular plaintiff; particularly a long history of complex medical issues including severe scoliosis with multiple surgical reconstructions of the spine,” he wrote in an email.

Thursday's verdict came in a trial that began Oct. 24. The plaintiff, Elizabeth Hill, had a Celect IVC filter implanted in preparation for spinal surgery in 2010. After her doctor was unable to remove the filter, Hill began to suffer gastrointestinal symptoms that she attributed to the IVC, which was finally removed in 2013.

Young had pared down Hill's claims significantly prior to trial. Plaintiffs attorneys also agreed to drop many of their claims. On Oct. 20, Young allowed a single strict liability design defect claim to go forward, despite noting that “the evidence is thin.” He also granted Cook's motion to bifurcate punitive damages from this month's trial.

The next bellwether trial against Cook is scheduled for April 2.

In the Bard MDL, the first trial is set for March 13. Many of the same law firms, such as Baron & Budd in Dallas and Florida's Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Rafferty Proctor, in Pensacola, and Babbitt & Johnson, of West Palm Beach, are involved in both IVC filter MDLs.

That litigation was sidelined with allegations that communications between plaintiffs attorneys and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and NBC, which did five news reports in 2015 about Bard's IVC filters, may have influenced the federal regulatory agency to send warning letters in 2014. Bard, represented by Richard North of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Atlanta, brought court filings last year requesting additional discovery as to those communications, as well as third-party financing of the IVC cases. Bard also wanted to depose two of the lead plaintiffs attorneys: Troy Brenes of Brenes Law Group in Aliso Viejo, California, and Boston attorney John Dalimonte of Washington, D.C.-based Dalimonte Rueb Law Group.

“Communications that the plaintiffs or their counsel had with the FDA or NBC about Bard's IVC filters are relevant as they may establish that the plaintiffs helped to create or influence the very evidence they are now using against Bard,” North wrote.

A month after Bard's request, Brenes withdrew from the plaintiffs steering committee.

Martin, who also serves on that committee, declined to comment on that issue, and neither Brenes nor Dalimonte responded to requests and calls for comment.

In court filings, another plaintiffs attorney, Robert Boatman of Gallagher & Kennedy in Phoenix called the discovery request a “speculative and collateral issue.” He also called the third-party litigating financing request a “witch hunt” based on “scurrilous, fact-free intimations levied against other members of the bar.”

U.S. District Judge David Campbell of the District of Arizona allowed discovery into communications with the FDA, but not NBC. He also refused to grant Bard's requests for third-party litigation financing disclosures or depositions of Brenes and Dalimonte. But he censured plaintiffs attorneys over their response, which “went a bit too far in its accusations,” and encouraged both sides to “maintain the professional approach and tone that have, to everyone's benefit, characterized this litigation thus far.”

Plaintiffs who brought thousands of lawsuits over IVC, or inferior vena cava, filters got off to a rough start on Thursday when a federal jury came out with a defense verdict in the first trial over the medical implants.

After three weeks of trial, a jury in Evansville, Indiana, found that the design of Cook Medical's Celect IVC filter wasn't defective—the only claim remaining in a case brought by a Florida woman after a federal judge wiped out most of her claims prior to trial.

“We are pleased with this outcome. Our IVC filters are clinically successful devices critical to patient well-being,” said Mark Breedlove, vice president of the vascular division at Cook Medical, which was represented at trial by a team of Faegre Baker Daniels attorneys led by Indianapolis partners Andrea Pierson and Jessica Cox, and Minneapolis partner Charles Webber.

More than 2,800 lawsuits against Cook have been coordinated in multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge Richard Young of the Southern District of Indiana. IVC filters are used to prevent pulmonary embolisms caused when blood clots travel to an artery in the lungs. Other manufacturers have been named in lawsuits, including 2,900 against C.R. Bard Inc. that have been coordinated in multidistrict litigation in Arizona federal court.

Lead plaintiffs attorneys in the Cook Medical cases included Dallas attorney Ben Martin, David Matthews of Matthews & Associates in Houston and Michael Heaviside of Heaviside Reed Zaic in Washington, D.C.

Martin, of the Law Offices of Ben C. Martin, said the verdict was case-specific and didn't anticipate it to influence the next trials in the MDL.

“This was a defense pick,” he said. “There were allegations by the defense of a lot of prior medical history that caused this perforation to occur.”

Heaviside had a similar response. “The case was confounded by many issues unique to this particular plaintiff; particularly a long history of complex medical issues including severe scoliosis with multiple surgical reconstructions of the spine,” he wrote in an email.

Thursday's verdict came in a trial that began Oct. 24. The plaintiff, Elizabeth Hill, had a Celect IVC filter implanted in preparation for spinal surgery in 2010. After her doctor was unable to remove the filter, Hill began to suffer gastrointestinal symptoms that she attributed to the IVC, which was finally removed in 2013.

Young had pared down Hill's claims significantly prior to trial. Plaintiffs attorneys also agreed to drop many of their claims. On Oct. 20, Young allowed a single strict liability design defect claim to go forward, despite noting that “the evidence is thin.” He also granted Cook's motion to bifurcate punitive damages from this month's trial.

The next bellwether trial against Cook is scheduled for April 2.

In the Bard MDL, the first trial is set for March 13. Many of the same law firms, such as Baron & Budd in Dallas and Florida's Levin Papantonio Thomas Mitchell Rafferty Proctor, in Pensacola, and Babbitt & Johnson, of West Palm Beach, are involved in both IVC filter MDLs.

That litigation was sidelined with allegations that communications between plaintiffs attorneys and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and NBC, which did five news reports in 2015 about Bard's IVC filters, may have influenced the federal regulatory agency to send warning letters in 2014. Bard, represented by Richard North of Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough in Atlanta, brought court filings last year requesting additional discovery as to those communications, as well as third-party financing of the IVC cases. Bard also wanted to depose two of the lead plaintiffs attorneys: Troy Brenes of Brenes Law Group in Aliso Viejo, California, and Boston attorney John Dalimonte of Washington, D.C.-based Dalimonte Rueb Law Group.

“Communications that the plaintiffs or their counsel had with the FDA or NBC about Bard's IVC filters are relevant as they may establish that the plaintiffs helped to create or influence the very evidence they are now using against Bard,” North wrote.

A month after Bard's request, Brenes withdrew from the plaintiffs steering committee.

Martin, who also serves on that committee, declined to comment on that issue, and neither Brenes nor Dalimonte responded to requests and calls for comment.

In court filings, another plaintiffs attorney, Robert Boatman of Gallagher & Kennedy in Phoenix called the discovery request a “speculative and collateral issue.” He also called the third-party litigating financing request a “witch hunt” based on “scurrilous, fact-free intimations levied against other members of the bar.”

U.S. District Judge David Campbell of the District of Arizona allowed discovery into communications with the FDA, but not NBC. He also refused to grant Bard's requests for third-party litigation financing disclosures or depositions of Brenes and Dalimonte. But he censured plaintiffs attorneys over their response, which “went a bit too far in its accusations,” and encouraged both sides to “maintain the professional approach and tone that have, to everyone's benefit, characterized this litigation thus far.”