Court of Appeals Reinstates Birmingham Hip Implant Lawsuit

Court of Appeals Reinstates Birmingham Hip Implant Lawsuit

Introduction

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals confirmed on restoring a Birmingham Hip Resurfacing lawsuit filed by a plaintiff against Smith & Nephew alleging the manufacturer of failing to warn about the system's health risk.

The lawsuit, filed by the plaintiff in April 2016, indicates the hip implants were defective and not compliant to the federal Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act and its regulations. The case was dismissed by the district court which was reinstated by a common three-judge appeals court panel. The Court of Appeals states that the plaintiff’s proposed amended complaint sufficiently alleges a failure-to-warn claim under Arizona law.

Several Birmingham Hip Replacement lawsuits are federally-filed against Smith & Nephew, 140 of which have been combined into a major federal litigation. Hip replacement lawsuits continue to be filed under a related hip litigation involving Stryker Hip Replacement lawsuits, centralized before U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani under MDL No. 2768 – in Re: Stryker LFIT V40 Femoral Head Products Liability Litigation.