Supreme Court reverses Zimmer win in $20m knee implant lawsuit
Reported by: Irina Robu, PhD
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday reversed a state appeals court’s decision to overturn a $20 million verdict against in a knee implant lawsuit. Margo Pollet had a double knee replacement procedure in 2006 using Zimmer’s Gender Solutions devices but after making a Zimmer promotional video which included riding a bicycle and running on treadmill, she claimed that it damaged her knees. She sued for negligence saying the injuries occured during filming the video. A jury awarded Polett millions in damages after finding that Zimmer was 34% culpable. The jury also put 30% of the blame on Polett herself and 36% on the marketing firm Public Communications for its involvement with the ad.
The Pennsylvania Superior Court last October ruled that the lower court incorrectly shifted the burden of proof onto Zimmer by asking the company to provide alternative explanations for Polett’s revisions surgeries, thus leading the jury to a potentially false conclusion, and ordered a new trial.
“In sum, the trial court’s ruling that Dr. Booth’s expert testimony as to causation was not barred by [Pennsylvania law] was amply supported by the evidence of record, and thus was reasonable. Consequently, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Dr. Booth to render an expert opinion at trial, and that the Superior Court erred by reassessing the evidence relied upon by the trial court in making its ruling, and by supplanting the trial court’s findings with its own evaluation of that evidence. We, therefore, reverse the order of the Superior Court as to this issue,” McCloskey Todd wrote.
The Supreme Court ordered the Superior Court to review whether the trial court was wrong to deny the defendants’ bid to overturn the verdict.
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