Weitz and Luxenberg Co-Lead Counsel in $2.5 Billion DePuy ASR Hip Implant Settlement

In August 2010, DePuy Orthopaedics recalled its ASR XL Acetabular Hip System after data showed that roughly one in eight patients who received the device had needed revision surgery within five years. The implant's metal-on-metal design ground cobalt and chromium particles into surrounding tissue with every step, causing soft-tissue destruction, elevated toxic metal levels in the bloodstream, and severe pain that often left patients unable to walk without support.

By December 2010, thousands of lawsuits had been filed across federal and state courts, and a multidistrict litigation was established in the Northern District of Ohio under MDL No. 2197. Judge David A. Katz appointed a leadership structure for the plaintiffs and named Ellen Relkin of Weitz and Luxenberg as co-lead counsel alongside Steven J. Skikos, placing her at the center of a litigation that would grow to more than 10,000 cases.

Relkin's responsibilities as co-lead counsel covered the full scope of the federal proceedings: coordinating discovery across tens of thousands of documents, overseeing the science committee that addressed device-design and metallurgy evidence, and driving the settlement negotiations directly with Johnson and Johnson and its DePuy subsidiary. The leadership team organized bellwether trials in state courts in Los Angeles and Cook County, Illinois, which tested the plaintiffs' core theories about design defect and failure to warn before the parties reached a global resolution.

In November 2013, DePuy and the court-appointed plaintiffs committee announced the settlement program. The total value came to approximately $2.5 billion, with about $2 billion set aside for base awards capped at $250,000 per claimant and $475 million earmarked for supplemental payments covering patients who required multiple revision procedures or faced extraordinary circumstances. Eligibility required that the revision surgery have occurred on or before August 31, 2013. The agreement required at least 94 percent of eligible claimants to enroll before it could take effect, and that threshold was met. An estimated 8,000 patients in the United States ultimately participated in the base award program.

The settlement did not resolve every case. DePuy later extended a separate program covering revisions performed after the original cutoff date, and some individual cases continued in state court. Approximately 114 cases remained pending in MDL 2197 as of 2026. The $2.5 billion figure represented one of the largest medical-device settlements in U.S. history at the time of its announcement.