Mentor ObTape Litigation Expands

Brenda Fulmer

Attorney
(866) 735-1102 Ext 703

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On November 20, 2008, the Judicial Panel for Multidistrict Litigation will convene in Charleston to hear arguments on whether multi-district litigation should be established for the management of personal injury lawsuits filed by women who were harmed by Mentor ObTape. The petition filed by Mentor Corporation seeks to consolidate 22 individual lawsuits that were filed on behalf of women who were injured by this popular surgical mesh utilized in surgeries for stress urinary incontinence. The 22 lawsuits that are sought to be transferred were filed in federal courts in California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Oklahoma. Mentor Corporation seeks the transfer and consolidation of these individual lawsuits in order to avoid corporate witnesses having to sit for multiple depositions and to provide the Defendant with consistency in discovery requests and legal rulings. The Defendant has suggested that the Mentor ObTape litigation be transferred to federal court in Oklahoma or the Northern District of Ohio. With this request for centralization of the litigation, it is anticipated that numerous additional individual lawsuits will be filed on behalf of women who were injured by the Mentor transobturator tape.

The Mentor ObTape surgical mesh product was first marketed in 2003. The product was withdrawn from the market after a number of women suffered severe complications associated with the device including: breakdown or erosion of vaginal tissue, chronic infections, extrusion of the mesh from the body, and other significant injuries.