The Legal Examiner Affiliate Network The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner search instagram avvo phone envelope checkmark mail-reply spinner error close The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner The Legal Examiner
Skip to main content

According to a Transfer Order issued August 17, a new MDL (multidistrict lawsuit) has been established in the U.S. District Court, District of Arizona, for all federal Bard IVC filter lawsuits filed by or on behalf of patients who allege to have been injured by the Recovery and G2 inferior vena cava (IVC) filters manufactured by C.R. Bard, Inc.

Pursuant to the order, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) transferred 22 IVC filter cases transferred to the District of Arizona in the hope that centralization will help avoid duplicative discovery and promote a quicker resolution of the lawsuits.

According to court documents, the IVC filter cases share common questions of fact and similar allegations, including design defects that make Bard IVC filters more likely to fracture, migrate, tilt, or perforate the inferior vena cava, causing serious injury to patients.

Adverse Reports Concerning IVC Filters

C.R. Bard’s Recovery and G2 IVC filters are designed to catch blood clots to prevent them from traveling to the lungs, where they could potentially cause a pulmonary embolism. But issues with IVC filters have prompted hundreds of adverse reports to be made to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and in August 2010, the FDA announced a warning about the risks surrounding IVC filters, particularly when the devices break apart and migrate to other areas of the body where they could potentially cause perforations and other serious injuries.

Many doctors did not previously remove IVC filters, perhaps because they had not been adequately warned about the importance of retrieving the devices. But that changed in May 2014, when the FDA recommended that doctors remove IVC filters within a month or two after the risk of pulmonary embolism had passed, and not leave them in place indefinitely.

Comments for this article are closed.