First Exactech Knee Lawsuit Trial Dates in MDL Rescheduled for July 6, 2025 and Sept. 29, 2025

Following a new Exactech knee implant recall issued in April, the parties requested an extension of several pretrial deadlines, which has resulted in the start of the first bellwether trial dates being delayed.

The U.S. District Judge presiding over all Exactech knee lawsuits has approved an updated pretrial schedule proposed by the parties, which delays the start of the first two trial dates by several weeks, to allow additional time for discovery.

The schedule calls for slightly more time to prepare the claims to go before juries than was originally provided, pushing back the start of the first Exactech knee lawsuit trial from June 2025 until July 2025, with a second trial originally expected to begin in August 2025 now slated for late September 2025.

The trials will be closely watched by lawyers involved in more than 1,600 product liability lawsuits currently being pursued against Exactech over problems linked to defective knee, hip and ankle components, which were first pulled from the market in early 2022, due to “out-of-specification” vacuum sealed bags used with a plastic tibial insert component.

Former implant recipients began filing the lawsuits after the Exactech recall was first announced in February 2022, impacting more than 140,000 Optetrak, Optetrak Logic and Truliant knee replacement systems implanted in patients since 2004, as well as 15,000 components used in Exactech Vantage ankle replacements.

Similar problems had already led to a recall of Exactech Novation and Acumatch hip implants in June 2021. The Exactech hip recall was expanded in August 2022, after the manufacturer identified another 40,000 joint replacements that could fail prematurely. Yet another Exactech recall involving knee implant components was announced in April of this year.

Lawsuits allege the packaging problem allowed oxygen to reach the components long before they were placed in the body, which caused the implants to degrade and fail prematurely, often resulting in the need for additional surgery to remove the component only a few years later.

Given the number of Exactech lawsuits over defective implants brought throughout the federal court system by the end of 2022, centralized pretrial proceedings were established in the federal court system before U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis in the Eastern District of New York, where the parties have selected a small group of representative claims to prepare for early bellwether trials.

Exactech Knee Lawsuit Bellwether Trial Dates

According to an order issued earlier this year, the first two Exactech bellwether trials were set to begin on June 2, 2025 and August 5, 2025, involving claims brought by Gayle Tarloff and Geraldine Larson, respectively. Both of these plaintiffs are from New York, and indicate they experienced problems with an Optetrak Logic knee implant, which is the product most commonly implicated in Exactech recall lawsuits.

However, that schedule was called into question following a new Exactech recall in April 2024, which affected some components used by bellwether plaintiffs. Originally, Judge Garaufis considered swapping the start dates for the first two trials due to the potential complications.

But plaintiffs and defendants sent a letter (PDF) to Judge Garaufis on August 16, jointly proposing an updated pretrial schedule they believe will better resolve any potential issues stemming from the new recall, by delaying the start of the Tarloff trial until July 7, 2025, with Larson’s claims continuing to be the second set for trial, beginning on September 29, 2025.

The schedules include key dates leading up to the trials, such as when depositions should be completed, pretrial motion deadlines, and opposition brief due dates. Judge Garaufis has approved the proposed schedule.

While the outcome of these bellwether trials will not have any binding impact on other Exactech knee lawsuits, the parties hope the outcomes will give them a good indication of how juries are likely to respond to expert testimony and evidence likely to be used throughout the litigation. The average payouts awarded by juries may help form the basis of an Exactech lawsuit settlement agreement to resolve large numbers of individual trials.

If the parties fail to resolve the litigation after the first two bellwether trials are completed, a second set of two cases are expected to begin in 2026, or Judge Garaufis may consider remanding large numbers of individuals cases back to their originating district courts for separate trial dates in the future.