Becton Dickinson Settles Vast Majority of Hernia-Mesh Suits

Becton Dickinson & Co. has agreed to settle the vast majority of the thousands of lawsuits claiming hernia patients were harmed by improper surgical mesh made by units of the medical technology giant, ending one of the largest current mass-tort litigations in the U.S.

Financial details weren’t disclosed in a Wednesday statement by Becton Dickinson, which didn’t admit any wrongdoing. In June, it set aside $1.9 billion to cover all its product-liability exposure — including about 38,000 hernia-mesh cases consolidated in an Ohio federal court and in Rhode Island. Settlements will be paid out “over a multiyear period,” the company said.

Becton subsidiaries CR Bard and Davol used improper plastic that caused infections, organ damage and pain, according to the complaints. The units were accused of misleading doctors and patients about the safety of mesh used to repair weak spots in groins and abdominal walls. Doctors perform more than a million hernia surgeries each year in the US.

“The settlement amount is already recorded as a liability within BD’s consolidated balance sheet and the agreement will not result in an incremental charge to the company’s consolidated income statement,” the company said. “BD believes this agreement is in the best interest of all parties and is structured to eliminate uncertainty for all stakeholders related to the settled cases. The hernia mass tort litigation represents a large majority of BD’s total product litigation reserve.”

Bard, which Becton acquired in 2017 for $24 billion, was previously involved in separate litigation over a different kind of mesh. It was among a host of medical-device makers that paid about $8 billion over the past decade to settle more than 100,000 suits tied to mesh designed to address womens’ urine leaks. The companies didn’t admit wrongdoing.

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

Bard also asked a federal judge in Ohio to keep the details of the settlement under wraps because the agreement contained a “confidentiality provision,” though the judge has refused to keep the information under seal. Patients who sued have the right not to join the settlement and to pursue jury trials for their cases, according to the filing.

The accord would resolve all cases consolidated before US District Judge Edmund Sargus Jr. in Columbus, Ohio, for pre-trial information exchanges and test trials. It also will settle a host of cases filed in state court in Rhode Island.

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

Bard won the first case to come to trial before Sargus, but juries later hit the company with a total of $755,000 in damages in two other trials.

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