Zimmer Knee Lawsuits Finally Consolidated

Zimmer, one of the nation’s largest orthopedic manufacturing companies, stands by the claim that the NexGen family of products—over 40 models of knee replacement systems—have one of the lowest failure rates and rates of Zimmer knee revision surgery out of all the knee revision products in the industry. A number of patients of the Zimmer NexGen recall CR-Flex device may beg to differ, however. A number of lawsuits filed across the country are pointing fingers at the orthopedics company, claiming that their devices have resulted in knee problems such as trouble standing, walking, and enjoying the same quality of life as they used to. Patients have also complained of severe knee pain and knee replacement failure. These conditions often lead to knee revision surgery.

Knee revision surgery is at the heart of a number of Zimmer lawsuits, which have been recently combined in multidistrict litigation by Zimmer knee lawyer. Knee revision surgery is a second surgery, which can be both costly and painful, that is intended to remove a faulty or defective knee replacement device and fit the patient with a new one that will hopefully cause fewer problems.

Several complications exist in knee revision surgery that does not exist in initial knee replacement surgery. The surgeon will have to work around existing scar tissue and degraded bone. In addition, pain and physical therapy tend to last much longer after a second surgery. Many patients who have had to undergo Zimmer knee revision surgery are joining the multidistrict litigation case.

Multidistrict litigation is centered in the Northern District of Illinois. This location was chosen not just for the high number of Zimmer cases that have been filed there, but also because Zimmer headquarters is in this district. Multidistrict litigation will help streamline the legal process and take care of pretrial processes like discovery more quickly, especially with cases that share certain similarities. Because the case has been combined into multidistrict litigation, a number of patients may still come forward in order to file suit based on example.

The multidistrict litigation case currently contains 28 individual cases from 13 different districts, but more than 45 individual cases may be added before long. It remains to be seen how much the total number will grow before trials begin.