False Misrepresentation Claim For Greenfield Filter Tossed

False Misrepresentation Claim For Greenfield Filter Tossed

Introduction

In an order issued on January 23, 2019, Chief Judge David C. Nye of the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho dismissed a fraudulent misrepresentation claim filed by a plaintiff against Boston Scientific Corporation, finding that she failed to plead her allegations with the particularity mentioned in Rule 9(b).

The order stated that the plaintiff did not make it clear to the jury that the BSC sales representative was responsible for misrepresenting the effectiveness and safety of the IVC filter to the plaintiff doctor and whether her doctor responded to the alleged misrepresentation. The plaintiff was implanted with a Greenfield filter by her doctor on December 23, 2009, to treat her recurrent DVT (deep vein thrombosis) episodes. In her lawsuit, the plaintiff alleged that Boston Scientific failed to reveal the health risks associated with the Greenfield filter to physicians and patients, while extensively promoting it as a useful product. She asserted that she was at an increased risk of suffering from serious complications such as constant pain in the abdomen, filter migration, fracture or breakage of the filter, tissue perforation, and other devastating side-effects due to the filter's long-term implant. In May 2007, the FDA recalled the Greenfield IVC Filter after reports indicated incidents of cardiac and pulmonary embolization as a potential side-effect.

Similar IVC filter cases filed against C.R. Bard and Davol are consolidated as a part of a multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2641; In Re: Bard IVC Filters Products Liability Litigation) for coordinated pretrial proceedings, overlooked by Judge David G. Campbell, in the United States District Court District of Arizona.