(PRWEB) September 04, 2012

United States District Judge Ed Kinkeade, overseeing the DePuy Orthopaedics Pinnacle lawsuits multidistrict litigation—Case no. 3:11-md-02244—in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, by order dated August 27, 2012, noted the court had been advised by defendant DePuy that the United States Food and Drug Administration recently approved an “explant study protocol to be conducted pursuant to Section 522 of the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act… as part of the post-market surveillance study of the Pinnacle-brand product [that] is the subject matter of this litigation.”

On August 9, 2012, the court had conducted a status conference at which counsel for DePuy and counsel for the numerous plaintiffs had been “instructed to confer, with the assistance of the Special Master, in an attempt to reach agreement on one letter DePuy can use in conjunction with the FDA-mandated Section 522 explant study to inform hospitals and surgeons who perform revision surgeries on patients with Pinnacle-brand products the importance of their cooperating to preserve the explanted devices.” The court had since learned that, as of the date of the new order, the parties were “unable to reach agreement on the contents of the communication DePuy will send to the hospitals and surgeons.”

Judge Kinkeade accordingly ordered the parties to continue to confer in an attempt to reach agreement on the contents of DePuy’s correspondence with the hospitals and surgeons, and further ordered that DePuy must provide its list of hospitals and surgeons who will receive notification of the post-market surveillance study to the court within 20 days. The list provided by DePuy will be reviewed by the court privately and will not be disclosed to any other party. Moreover, the court prohibited DePuy from sending its proposed notification of the post-market study to hospitals and surgeons without further permission of the court.

A previous order of the court—dated August 14—established that the first bellwether Pinnacle case is to be ready for trial by September 4, 2014.

Rochelle Rottenstein, principal of the Rottenstein Law Group, implores anyone with a friend or relative who has received a dangerous hip implant or other medical device to reach out to that person and recommend that he or she consult a physician immediately and then speak to a qualified personal injury lawyer. The Rottenstein Law Group maintains a DePuy Pinnacle Lawsuit Information Page at http://www.rotlaw.com/depuy-pinnacle. (Attorney advertising. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.)

About THE ROTTENSTEIN LAW GROUP
The Rottenstein Law Group is a New York-based law firm that represents clients nationwide in mass tort actions. The firm was founded by Rochelle Rottenstein, who has more than two decades of experience as a lawyer, to represent clients in consumer product injury, mass tort, and class action lawsuits in a compassionate manner.http://www.rotlaw.com

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