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As part of the coordinated management of the litigation, it is expected that Judge Saris will appoint a small group of lawyers in the Covidien hernia mesh lawsuits to serve in various leadership positions, taking certain actions during discovery and pretrial proceedings that benefit each plaintiff.

While those final leadership appointments have not yet been made, Judge Saris did issue a case management order (PDF) on September 8, appointing two attorneys to serve as an interim Plaintiffs’€™ Steering Committee and one attorney as the Plaintiffs’€™ Steering Committee Liaison Counsel.

Until permanent leadership positions are filled, these lawyers will take certain actions during the pretrial proceedings that benefit all plaintiffs presenting claims, including arguing motions, taking depositions of common witnesses, reviewing discovery documents and other actions. However, they are primarily assigned to come up with a plaintiffs’€™ leadership structure that will endure throughout the pretrial proceedings.

The Court is also expected to establish a €œbellwether€ process, where a group of representative cases will be prepared for early trial dates to help the parties gauge the relative strengths and weaknesses of their claims, and how juries are likely to respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation.

While the outcomes of these bellwether trials will not be binding on other plaintiffs, they may help drive the parties toward settlements that would avoid the need for hundreds of individual trials to be held.

At least three other hernia mesh MDLs are already established for claims involving other polyethylene products sold by other companies, with more than 15,400 Bard hernia mesh lawsuits centralized in the Southern District of Ohio, another 3,600 Ethicon Physiomesh lawsuits centralized in the Northern District of Georgia and 3,251 Atrium C-Qur lawsuits centralized in the District of New Hampshire.

Tags: Covidien, Hernia Mesh, Medtronic, Parietex

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