U.S. Courts Block Consolidation of Pain Pump Lawsuits

 digg it |   delicious |   StumbleUpon |  reddit 

The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation has denied a request to combine all shoulder pain pump lawsuits, saying that even though there are a growing number of cases, there is not enough in common to combine them.


More than 100 shoulder pump chondrolysis suits have been filed in federal courts throughout the country against the disposable pain pump manufacturers like  I-Flow Corp., Stryker Corp., and DJO. All of the claims involve similar allegations that the use of pain pumps to deliver pain medications after surgery can destroy shoulder cartilage, causing new shoulder problems and maybe even resulting in the need for shoulder replacement surgery.


Although the Court rejected a similar motion to combine the shoulder pump lawsuits in August 2008 (when there were only about 32 cases pending), a new motion was filed earlier this year in order to avoid conflicting rulings in the different courts where the cases are to be heard. However, the panel again rejected the request to create a multidistrict litigation (MDL).

“Although the number of related actions has certainly grown, the issues that weighed against centralization in that earlier docket remain,” the panel explained in its decision. “An indeterminate number of different pain pumps made by different manufacturers are still at issue, as are different anesthetics made by different pharmaceutical companies.”

The decision means that pain pump claims will proceed as individual cases, but some courts have consolidated small groups of cases. Read about why lawsuits are being filed against pain pump manufacturers here.


In November 2009, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) required manufacturers of the pumps and the local anesthetics used with the devices to add new warnings about the risk of chondrolysis from pain pumps. The recent warnings were designed to alert healthcare professionals that the use of pain pumps following surgery increases the risk of chondrolysis, particularly involving the shoulder.