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SOURCE: Report: Lawsuits over hip implants filed against Stryker in Texas, New Jersey | MLive.com.

Lawsuits over hip implants filed against Stryker in Texas, New Jersey

Published: Thursday, September 13, 2012, 10:10 AM     Updated: Thursday, September 13, 2012, 10:12 AM

By Yvonne Zipp | yzipp@mlive.com

KALAMAZOO, MI – Seven plaintiffs filed lawsuits against Stryker Orthopaedics, formerly Howmedica Osteonics Corp., over its recalled Rejuvenate and ABG II hip implant systems.

The law firm of Searcy Denney Scarola Barnhart & Shipley PA announced Sept. 11 that it had filed the suits in Bergen County Superior Court in New Jersey. The South Florida law firm also filed the first case against Stryker in August on behalf of a Boca Raton, Fla., woman. The plaintiffs allege that Stryker negligently developed, tested, manufactured, distributed, marketed and sold its defective Rejuvenate System.

A Stryker spokeswoman declined to comment on the lawsuits. “As a matter of company policy, we do not comment on legal matters,” Jeanine Guilfoyle said in an e-mail Thursday.

The Kalamazoo-based medical device maker voluntarily recalled the metal-on-metal modular hip implants in July. At the time, Stryker said it issued the recall and halted global production due to elevated risks of fretting or corrosion that “could result in adverse local tissue reactions manifesting with pain and/or swelling.” About 20,000 of the recalled devices were sold in the United States.

Separately, a Texas corrections officer filed suit against the company in the U.S. District Court of Texas over the hip implant, Injury Lawyer News reported Sept. 12. In that case, filed July 5, the plaintiff was implanted with Stryker’s Alumina Ceramic V40TM Femoral Head device, which, the lawsuit alleged, dislocated three times in two weeks. That case was filed in federal court because the plaintiff’s claim of complications is in excess of $75,000.