A jury recently awarded $5 million to the family of a Pennsylvania woman who died after undergoing gastric bypass surgery at a Pittsburgh hospital. The jury found that the woman's death was caused by a defective surgical stapler that failed to form proper staples, allowing her stomach contents to leak into her intestinal cavity.
The manufacturer of the surgical stapler, Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc., a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, maintained that the staple failure was instead caused by the surgeon's error. The company claimed that an improperly sized staple was used. The jury, however, found a design defect resulting in a verdict against Ethicon for the wrongful death of the woman.
Since 1999, Ethicon received numerous reports of staple line failures that the company concluded were related to the surgeon choosing the wrong size staple. Rather than addressing the problem in the design of the stapler, the company continued to blame the surgeons.
The plaintiff's attorney says he feels that Ethicon was not forthright in either accepting responsibility for the failure of the staples or in its willingness to inform the public about the hazards that come with their application in surgery. The public should know about the risks that come with operations that involve these devices. Anyone who has this procedure should be aware of the risks associated with stapler failure.
Reference:
"Wrongful Death Verdict Raises Issue of Stomach Stapler's Safety," PRNewswire, June 2007.
