Once upon a time there was a federal judge . . . . When we were little, we liked it when our mom spun free-form fairy tales for us.  We would contribute the object of the “was” (“Once upon a time there was a . . . bullfrog”), and she would make up the rest as she went along.  Which is fine for mommies, but less so for federal judges, as today’s (very short) case illustrates.

In Fay v. Depuy Orthopedics, Inc., et al, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 175344 (D.N.D. June 11, 2015), plaintiff’s hip was replaced with a metal-on-metal hip system.  The system consisted of various components, two of which were at issue:  the femoral head and the acetabular cup.  Both components come in various sizes, but, for the system to work correctly, matched sizes of the two components must be implanted in the patient.

In Fay, it was undisputed that Plaintiff received mismatched components and had to undergo revision surgery.  One of the defendants was a distributor that marketed and sold the system. Plaintiff’s surgeon testified that two specific sales reps employed by the distributor were always in the operating room when he implanted that particular hip system.  According to the surgeon (who was not sued), the reps were responsible, based on a process called “templating” of the patient’s x-rays, for placing an appropriate range of sizes of the two components on a table in the operating room before the surgeon arrived.  From the prepared template, the surgeon would determine what size acetabular cup would be implanted, and would ask for that size cup and the correspondingly-sized femoral head.   The sales reps were allegedly responsible for selecting the components from the implant table, verifying for both that they had pulled the size the surgeon requested, and handing the packaged components to the circulating nurse, who unpacked them and placed them in the sterile field.  In the absence of sales reps, the circulating nurse would be responsible for selecting the correct sizes of components.Continue Reading Sales Reps Denied Summary Judgment in Artificial Hip Case Despite Absence of Legal Duty to the Plaintiff