Biomet Agrees to Pay at Least $56 Million to Settle About 1,000 Federal M2a Magnum Metal Hip Claims
After trial: This was a private settlement with no appeal found. The $56 million figure is the reported minimum, made up of a $50 million escrow payment and a $6 million attorney fee fund, and the final total was not disclosed.
Won by Anapol Weiss.
In early 2014, Biomet agreed to pay at least $56 million to settle about 1,000 federal lawsuits over its M2a 38 and M2a Magnum metal-on-metal hip implants, consolidated in the Northern District of Indiana. Qualifying patients who had the device revised received a base award of $200,000, adjusted by individual factors. Thomas Anapol was court-appointed Co-Lead Counsel with W. Mark Lanier and signed the agreement for the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee. The figure covers many unrelated plaintiffs, is a reported minimum rather than a final total, and is not itemized by person.
What happened
The Biomet M2a 38 and M2a Magnum were metal-on-metal hip replacement systems, in which a metal ball moves inside a metal cup. Plaintiffs alleged that the components released metal debris as they wore and corroded. The lawsuits described pain, loss of mobility and early implant failure, and many patients needed revision surgery to remove or replace the device within a few years of implantation.
The federal cases were centralized on October 2, 2012, as MDL 2391 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, before Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. On December 5, 2012, the court appointed leadership for the plaintiffs' side. Thomas R. Anapol, then of Anapol Schwartz, and W. Mark Lanier were named Co-Lead Counsel. Robert T. Dassow and Frederick R. Hovde were appointed liaison counsel, and six more lawyers joined the Executive Committee alongside a broader steering committee of more than two dozen attorneys.
Biomet announced a settlement on February 3, 2014. The written agreement, dated January 31, 2014, was made between Biomet and the Plaintiffs' Executive Committee, and Anapol signed its signature block for the plaintiffs. The agreement called for an initial payment of $50 million into escrow, and Reuters and Law360 reported that Biomet would pay at least $56 million in all, with a further $6 million going to a fund for plaintiffs' attorney fees. The deal covered roughly 1,000 product liability lawsuits then pending in the MDL, and the final total paid out was not made public.
The terms were built around revision surgery. Eligible claimants were those whose cases were confirmed and filed on or before April 15, 2014, and who had undergone a revision. Each such claimant received a base award of $200,000, with other factors affecting the individual allocation. About 237 cases in which patients had not had the implant removed were excluded at the outset, though those claimants could become eligible if a revision surgery followed later.
The agreement resolved the federal claims as a group rather than through individual trials, and the individual payments were not made public. Reporting at the time noted that the settlement was open to lawsuits filed in the MDL by the April 15, 2014 deadline, which gave later-filed federal claimants a window to participate. No appeal of the settlement was found, and this account does not cover any separate Biomet resolution for non-revision claims.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Settlement Agreement, In re Biomet M2a Magnum Hip Implant Products Liability Litigation, MDL 2391 (N.D. Ind.), Jan. 31, 2014·Archived copy
- 2.The Indiana Lawyer, 'Biomet settles hip-replacement litigation', Feb. 2014·Archived copy
- 3.Reuters, 'Biomet reaches $56 million settlement over faulty hip replacements', Feb. 4, 2014
- 4.Law360, 'Biomet To Pay $56M To Settle Hip Replacement MDL', Feb. 2014
- 5.AboutLawsuits.com, 'Biomet Magnum Hip Lawyers Appointed to Leadership Roles in MDL', Dec. 17, 2012·Archived copy
- 6.AboutLawsuits.com, 'Biomet Hip Settlement Reached for $56M to Resolve Lawsuits', Feb. 4, 2014·Archived copy
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