A federal judicial panel centralized 49 lawsuits into two manufacturer-specific proceedings, again declining to put all spinal cord stimulator litigation before one judge.
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation issued transfer orders Oct. 2 sending the Abbott cases to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, and the Nevro cases to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Abbott faces 26 pending federal lawsuits across 13 districts, and Nevro faces 23 across 10, according to the orders.
The lawsuits allege the implants can migrate, break through the skin, deliver painful shocks, cause nerve damage and fail outright, often requiring revision or removal surgery. Plaintiffs also allege the manufacturers repeatedly modified the devices through FDA premarket approval supplements without adequate safety testing, and that sales representatives who program the devices told patients that mechanical failures were programming issues, delaying removals.
Centralization lets cases against the same manufacturer move through discovery and other pretrial proceedings together, though each remains an individual claim. Plaintiffs must still prove their specific device caused their injuries.
Several parties had asked the panel to send the new cases to the judge overseeing the Boston Scientific litigation. The panel declined.
“We are not persuaded, as several parties suggest, that the litigation should be assigned to the same judge in the Central District of California who is presiding over the MDL involving Boston Scientific SCS devices. Little efficiency will be gained by placing SCS device MDLs against multiple manufacturers before one judge,” the panel wrote.
Abbott had opposed consolidation, arguing in an Aug. 4 filing that the cases are “highly individualized” and do not share a specific alleged device defect, Becker’s reported.
An Abbott spokesperson told Becker’s the company stands behind the safety, quality and performance of its spinal cord stimulation systems.
“They are highly regulated medical devices that have been approved and updated in accordance with federal law through the FDA’s rigorous premarket approval and supplement processes. We disagree with the allegations and are confident that the evidence and science support our position,” the Abbott spokesperson said.
Becker’s has reached out Nevro for comment and will update this story if more information becomes available.
The two consolidations add to a growing body of spinal cord stimulator litigation. Becker’s previously reported that patients have filed similar lawsuits against Boston Scientific and Medtronic over the devices, and that Boston Scientific spinal cord stimulator cases have also been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation in the Central District of California.
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