You may remember the balloon catheter from the landmark Riegel v. Medtronic Supreme Court decision a few months back. You know, the one that burst during Charles Riegel’s angioplasty procedure, causing him to become disabled and probably dramatically shortening his life. As a result, Donna Riegel, Charles’ soon-to-be-widow, filed a defective product lawsuit against Medtronic, claiming breach of implied warranty and negligence in the design, testing, inspection, distribution, labeling, marketing, and sale of the catheter, among other things. But the Supreme Court upheld the finding of the District Court that the federal Medical Device Amendment (MDA) allowed the FDA to pre-empt state laws that were being used to file this lawsuit, among many others related to defective medical devices, such as a possible class-action lawsuit related to Medtronic’s Sprint Fidelis defibrillator leads.
Anyway, Medtronic has been busy in court, because while it was defending the product liability lawsuit, it was offending with a patent violation suit against competitor Boston Scientific. And it was rewarded for its effort, with a $250 million verdict against Boston Scientific. The verdict was first reduced down to $186 million, but then two of the patent infringement lawsuits were dismissed by a higher court, because Medtronic had mislead the patent office and practiced inequitable conduct during the patent approval process, making the patents unenforceable. Without those two patents, the ruling is reduced to a mere $19 million, although both corporations plan to appeal the decision.
This leads one to wonder why a company that is seeking this level of damages to protect its dominant share of the $400 million per annum balloon catheter market, couldn’t scratch up a little chump change to take care of the people damaged by the product, even if it is not defective, per se.
But unfortunately we cannot count on a medical device manufacturer to “do the right thing.” So, if you’ve been hurt by a defective medical device, contact an experienced West Palm Beach product liability lawyer at the Law Offices of Craig Goldenfarb, P.A. today for a free consultation and case evaluation.
