It is going to take a whole lot of money for Johnson & Johnson to defend the product liability actions stemming from the DePuy hip replacement system. How much? About $1 billion according to medcitynews.com. How much is one billion, you ask? If you counted to one billion at one number every second, it would take you 31 years, 259 days, 1 hour, 46 minutes and 40 seconds to reach one billion. That is a lot of money, even for a corporation.
Forecasting its liability, Johnson & Johnson raised its product liability reserves to $570 million and set aside $280 million for patients’ medical costs associated with the defective hip replacement system. There are about 1,000 cases pending against Johnson & Johnson and DePuy for the defective product, which shed metal particles into the patients’ bloodstreams.
The class action lawsuits allege that DePuy knew of the problems with the hip implant but that it failed to warn doctors. Thankfully, the defective hip implant is no longer available. DePuy phased it out earlier this year.
Are you still trying to wrap your head around one billion? This might help – one billion minutes ago was the height of the Roman Empire. One billion hours ago, earth was in the midst of the Stone Age.
Colson Hicks Eidson – Florida injury lawyers