Dancer drops DePuy suit, may join federal action

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UPPER MARLBORO — A former dancer has withdrawn her claim against Johnson & Johnson over faulty hip replacements on the same day the trial was to start.

Opening statements in Moira Jackson’s lawsuit were scheduled to be heard Tuesday afternoon before Prince George’s County Circuit Court Judge Crystal Dixon Mittelstaedt. The case would have been the first of more than 10,000 lawsuits to go to trial against the pharmaceutical company and its subsidiary, DePuy Orthopaedics, for recalled hip replacements.

Jackson plans to refile her claim in federal court in Ohio, where most of the other lawsuits have been consolidated as multidistrict litigation. The first of those cases is scheduled to be heard in Toledo in May and a second is slated for July.

Mittelstaedt approved Jackson’s request to drop the claims after a jury had been selected Monday in Upper Marlboro.

Johnson & Johnson recalled more than 90,000 of its hip replacements in 2010. Patients filing lawsuits have said metal debris from the implants caused tissue death and an increase of metal ions in their blood. The company says more than 12 percent of the hip implants failed in the course of five years.

Jackson filed her lawsuit in Prince George’s County in September 2010, alleging that complications from her two hip replacements — one in each leg — had kept her from living normally. She also said in court filings that DePuy doctors failed to properly inform her of the hip units’ risks.

A spokesperson for Venable LLP, which is representing Johnson & Johnson, declined to comment on the case. The company has denied that the medical device is faulty, and has noted in court documents that it was approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

Attorneys for Jackson and two other plaintiffs named in the case did not return calls or emails for comment.

Jackson’s agreement to drop her claim in Maryland was the product of discussions between attorneys on both sides, according to Bloomberg News. Moving Jackson’s and other artificial-hip recipients’ claims to federal court in Ohio puts the suits in “a good place for all the parties,” Altom Maglio, one of the retired dancer’s lawyers, told the judge.

Maglio, of Maglio Christopher Toale Law Firm in Sarasota, Fla., agreed to dismiss four other hip claims filed in Maryland along with Jackson’s case, Bloomberg said.

Johnson & Johnson has lost $800 million recalling the hip implants in the past two years and faced 10,100 lawsuits over the false hips as of November, according to an SEC filing, Bloomberg News reported.

The company settled a state-law action in Nevada by three other people who received hip replacements for $600,000 last fall. Those were the first settlements reported in the case.

The consolidated federal case is In re DePuy Orthopedics Inc., ASR Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, 10-MD-2197, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Ohio (Toledo).

The Maryland case is Jackson v. DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., CAL 10-32147, Circuit Court for Prince George’s County, Maryland (Upper Marlboro).