Becton Dickinson makes the vast majority of hernia mesh suits

Becton Dickinson & Co. has agreed to settle the vast majority of thousands of lawsuits alleging that hernia patients were harmed by improper surgical mesh made by the medical technology giant’s units, ending one of the largest current mass tort litigation in the US.

Financial details were not disclosed in a statement Wednesday by Becton Dickinson, which admitted no wrongdoing. In June, it set aside $1.9 billion to cover all of its product liability exposure — including about 38,000 hernia cases consolidated in federal court in Ohio and Rhode Island. The settlements will be paid “over a period of several years,” the company said.

Becton CR Bard and Davol subsidiaries used inappropriate plastic that caused infections, organ damage and pain, according to the complaints. The facilities have been accused of misleading doctors and patients about the safety of mesh used to repair weak points in the groin and abdominal walls. Doctors perform more than one million hernia surgeries each year in the US.

“The settlement amount is already recorded as a liability on BD’s consolidated balance sheet and the settlement will not result in an additional charge to the company’s consolidated income statement,” the company said. “BD believes this agreement is in the best interests of all parties and is structured to remove uncertainty for all interested parties related to settled cases. Mass hernia litigation represents a large majority of BD’s total product litigation backlog.”

Bard, which Becton acquired in 2017 for $24 billion, was previously involved in a separate dispute over a different type of mesh. It was among a slew of medical device makers that paid about $8 billion over the past decade to pay for more than 100,000 mesh-bound suits designed to fix women’s urine leaks. The companies did not admit the mistakes.

In July, Bard officials said they agreed to the settlement to avoid “the expense, inconvenience and burden of litigation, and the distraction and diversion of its personnel and resources, and did so without admission of liability or wrongdoing.”

Bard also asked a federal judge in Ohio to keep details of the settlement secret because the agreement contained a “confidentiality provision,” though the judge refused to keep the information under seal. According to the filing, patients who sued have the right to opt out of the settlement and pursue jury trials for their cases.

The settlement would resolve all cases consolidated before U.S. District Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Columbus, Ohio, for pretrial information sharing and probate proceedings. It will also settle a number of cases filed in state court in Rhode Island.

An Ocean State jury found in August 2022 that Becton must pay $4.8 million to a man who blamed Davol’s hernia for the damage to his intestines. Davol and Bard were accused of using a plastic in the mesh that even the supplier deemed unsuitable for use in the human body.

Bard won the first case that went to trial against Sargus, but juries later hit the company with a total of $755,000 in damages in two other lawsuits.

The case is IN RE Davol/CR Bard Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Litigation, 2:18-md-2846, US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio (Columbus).

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