Bard PowerPort Lawyers Will Update Judge on Status of Litigation at Case Management Conference

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all federal Bard PowerPort lawsuits will meet today with lawyers involved in the litigation, to discuss the status of the rapidly growing litigation, as lawyers prepare to narrow down a small group of representative claims that are being prepared for the first bellwether trials.

The Bard PowerPort is a totally implantable vascular access device (TIVAD), which is used to deliver chemotherapy and other medications directly into a patient’s blood vessel. The device involves an injection port site, where a needle is inserted, as well as a polyurethane catheter tube that delivers the fluid to the body.

Unlike other implanted ports, the Bard PowerPort is marketed as a special type of port catheter, which is intended to withstand higher injection pressures for a variety of treatments, such as chemotherapy. However, more than 949 individuals are now pursuing lawsuits alleging that the catheter tubing material was defectively designed, making the Bard PowerPort prone to fracture and migrate throughout the body, as well as allow bacteria to form and cause devastating port catheter infections.

The size of the Bard PowerPort litigation has nearly doubled over the past three months, as more individuals and families learn that injuries and complications experienced in recent years may have been the result of a faulty design.

Given common questions of fact and law raised in lawsuits filed throughout the federal court system, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) established a Bard PowerPort lawsuit MDL in August 2023, which centralized the litigation before U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell in the District of Arizona for coordinated discovery and pretrial proceedings.

As part of the management of the litigation, Judge Campbell is scheduled to meet with lawyers today for a Bard PowerPort lawsuit status conference, to review the growth of the litigation and progress with common issue discovery, as well as case-specific discovery in a small group of bellwether claims.

According to a joint memorandum (PDF) submitted by the parties on December 2, there are currently at least 879 cases pending in the MDL, with another 64 cases pending in New Jersey state court and 7 cases pending in the Superior Court of Maricopa County, Arizona.

This represents a sharp increase from the 467 Bard PowerPort lawsuits the parties reported were pending in August 2024, and the pace of new filings does not appear to be slowing.

Bard PowerPort Lawsuit Bellwether Selections Will Be Narrowed

Early in the centralized pretrial proceedings, Judge Campbell directed the parties to select 24 Bard PowerPort bellwether cases, which each involve allegations representative of other claims in the litigation. Since July 2024, the parties have been engaged in written discovery in these cases, including the exchange of comprehensive fact sheets containing details about each lawsuit.

On December 10, the parties will each exchange a list of five bellwether cases that they designate for automatic inclusion in a Discovery Group, according to the joint status report submitted yesterday. Lawyers will then meet and confer to jointly identify another five cases, and submit a memorandum by December 18, 2024, confirming the total of 15 cases selected to continue further case-specific discovery.

According to a Case Management Order #10 (PDF) issued by Judge Campbell in November 2023, those 15 Discovery Group cases will later be narrowed down further to a final group of six claims in March 2025, which will be eligible to go before federal juries, to help gauge the average Bard PowerPort lawsuit payouts that may be awarded.

While the outcomes of these early bellwether trials will not have any binding impact on other claims pending in the MDL or state courts, they are expected to have a major impact on future Bard PowerPort lawsuit settlement negotiations, which will be necessary to avoid hundreds of individual claims being set for trial in the coming years.