High Court hip replacement legal battle

Judgement in the group action against Depuy International Ltd in respect of their Metal-on-metal hip prosthesis, Pinnacle Ultamet® was handed down yesterday in the high court. Mrs Justice Andrews found that despite reportedly high failure rates the device could not be considered to be unsafe and did not amount to a defective product.

As a test case for many hundreds of other hip claims this judgement will have a significant knock on effect, particularly on those claimants who are waiting in the wings with potential claims relating to similar devices from different manufacturers and who have suffered from the crippling effects of metal debris.

Ultimately it would seem that the Claimants were not able to establish to a sufficient degree that the failure rates were high enough to warrant a finding of defect when compared to other comparable devices on the market. The Court has criticised the reliability of  data compiled by the National Joint Registry and will lead to calls for better analysis in these types of cases.

The Claimant group are yet to announce if they intend to appeal the decision.

To read a summary of the judgement please click here.