LOS ANGELES -- A lawsuit brought by a man whose hip implant caused metal poisoning accuses medical giant Johnson & Johnson of knowingly marketing the faulty implant, which left thousands of people with crippling problems or in need of replacement surgeries.
A California jury heard opening statements Friday in the fraud and negligence lawsuit -- the first of thousands to reach trial in the U.S. that involve an all-metal ball-and-socket hip joint that was recalled two years ago.A lawyer for plaintiff Loren Kransky showed jurors pictures from a surgery in which black material could be seen in the patient's hip socket. Attorney Michael Kelly said the material was from pieces of metal that had flaked off the implant.Kelly also played a segment of a doctor's audio deposition that said he feared that if the material wasn't removed, Kransky would have died.The pieces were causing a form of metal poisoning, he said.Kransky, a former North Dakota prison guard, sought a hip replacement to relieve arthritic pain. He received the implant in 2007 and has had it replaced. He listened to opening statements Friday from the front row.A lawyer for Johnson & Johnson's subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics, which made the implant, said Friday that the 64-year-old Kransky had many pre-existing medical ailments.Attorney Alexander Calfo presented a list of 16 major diseases, including kidney cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and vascular disease, as well as exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War."Mr. Kransky did not get worse because of the [implant] and did not get better when it was removed," he said. "Hip surgery is not perfect. No material to this very day has proven to be perfect."The artificial hip socket was sold for eight years to some 35,000 people in the U.S. and more than 90,000 people worldwide. Johnson & Johnson stopped making it in 2009 and recalled it the next year.Unsealed documents indicate that Johnson & Johnson was aware of problems as far back as 2008.A 2011 company review found that more than a third of the implants were expected to fail within five years.Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
