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American healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson, Australia, Ben Slade, Class action, Johnson, Johnson & Johnson, Maurice Blackburn, South Australia, Sydney, UNited States
Class action against healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson put back by months | The Australian.
Class action against healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson put back by months
BRAD CROUCH HEALTH REPORTER
THE ADVERTISER
4:53PM
A major court case pitching hundreds of South Australians against an American healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson has been put back. Source: News Limited
A MAJOR court case pitching hundreds of South Australians against an American multinational corporation has been put back for months after healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson lodged thousands of pages of documents.
The case involving allegedly faulty hip replacements was due to be heard in the Federal Court in Sydney on June 2 but this has been put back to March next year.
About 3000 Australians, including about 450 in South Australia, are suing over faulty hip implants.
The case has been delayed after Johnson & Johnson lodged 3000 pages of affidavits and almost 20,000 pages of annexures.
Victims complain it is “delay by avalanche”, however, their lawyers concede the case is so complex such a response, and consequent delay, is hard to avoid.
The metal ball-and-socket Articular Surface Replacement was taken off the market in 2010 after eight years and has been implanted into more than 90,000 people worldwide.
Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay US$2.5 billion — about US$250,000 per patient — to settle thousands of lawsuits in the US, however, no such offer is on the table in Australia.
In South Australia, law firms Shine Lawyers, Maurice Blackburn, Duncan Basheer Hannon and Lemprier Abbott McLeod represent about 450 people.
Maurice Blackburn managing principal Ben Slade called on Johnson & Johnson to settle the class action with an offer similar to the one made in the US.
“The discovery process alone saw 1.8 million documents and we have had a team of 30 lawyers and paralegals working on it,” he said.
“It is enormously complicated and I can’t blame them for introducing these documents. It is unfortunate that it has been put back this long.”
The case is expected to take at least four weeks once it commences in March.
One of the complaints, diabetic grandfather Bob Perry, 70, has two of the replacement hips still in place after they were implanted within a week in 2007.
“My cobalt levels are climbing and no-one can tell me what that means — I am on constant pain killing medication and can’t walk any kind of distance without pain,” the Banksia Park man said.
“Johnson & Johnson put baby powder on my bum as a baby, Band-Aids on my knees as a kid, and now cobalt in my body. This rush of documents is delay by avalanche.”
Earl's View 
Johnson and depuy be fair and compensate the Australians. Why compensate just U.S.A. people?
they won’t because they are corporate criminals who hide behind the law and only pay out what they have to, if they have too. Its all about numbers, not people.
I liked the comment of Powder on My Bottom and Band Aids on my Knees. OK, hit them back in the pocketbooks. Stop buying the products of everyday life. Like Lou Costello said in the movie “In the Navy” while playing dice with Bud Abbott. “Oh you can win and you CAN LOSE”. We all have to do what we can to protest this abhorrent behavior by a so called ethical company. (Ethical my ass which was powdered by J&J also).
Howard