First Wright Hip Implant Failure Case Goes to Trial

In 2010, Alan Warner received a Wright Medical Technology Profemur metal-on-metal hip implant that was supposed to last up to 20 years. Excruciating pains landed him back in the hospital in less than 3 years after the implant weakened and snapped inside his body. Warner’s lawsuit, filed in 2011, is the first Wright hip implant case to go to trial, and is one of over 600 others coordinated in California state court and another 600 pending in federal multi-district litigation in Georgia. Warner contended to the jury that the laser guide-mark etchings in the implant weakened the device, causing its early failure. Many of the 1,200 other cases pending against Wright and its Profemur hip implant allege several different types of defects, including blood poisoning from bits of metal chipping into patients’ bloodstream.