$2 Million Verdict Against Bard Over Avaulta Pelvic Mesh, Including $1.75 Million Punitive
After trial: Affirmed. The August 15, 2013 verdict was $250,000 compensatory plus $1,750,000 punitive, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed on January 14, 2016 (810 F.3d 913), upholding the punitive award.
Won by Powell & Majestro, PLLC.
Donna Cisson was implanted with C.R. Bard's Avaulta Plus transvaginal mesh and developed chronic pelvic pain and bleeding requiring surgical revision. The polypropylene resin supplier's own material safety data sheet cautioned against permanent implantation in the human body. The jury returned $2 million including punitive damages, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed.
What happened
Donna Cisson was implanted with C.R. Bard's Avaulta Plus mesh to treat pelvic organ prolapse. The mesh caused chronic pelvic pain and bleeding, and she needed surgery to revise it.
The case against Bard was design defect and failure to warn, and it turned substantially on one document: the material safety data sheet for the polypropylene resin Bard used, written by the resin's own supplier, which cautioned against permanent implantation in the human body. Bard used it in a device meant to stay in a person permanently.
Bard fought hard to keep that sheet away from the jury, and the fight over it went all the way up. The district court admitted it for purposes other than establishing a standard of care, and the Fourth Circuit upheld that ruling.
This was a bellwether trial. The federal pelvic-mesh cases against Bard were centralized in the Southern District of West Virginia as MDL No. 2187 before Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, which is why a Georgia plaintiff's case was tried in Charleston under Georgia substantive law. The figure is Cisson's own and is not a global MDL settlement number.
On August 15, 2013 the jury returned $250,000 in compensatory damages to Cisson and $1,750,000 in punitive damages, for $2,000,000. Her husband Dan Cisson brought a derivative claim.
On January 14, 2016 the Fourth Circuit affirmed, upholding both the evidentiary ruling on the safety data sheet and the punitive award.
Cisson was represented by Henry G. Garrard III and Josh B. Wages of Blasingame, Burch, Garrard and Ashley as lead trial counsel, with Allison Van Laningham, and Anthony J. Majestro of Powell and Majestro as West Virginia counsel.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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