Mr Justice Michael Peart has given permission for notices to be served on DePuy Orthopaedics Inc and others as the first High Court action against the company responsible for thousands of faulty hip replacement systems in Ireland begins to take shape.
The serving of preliminary notices only informs DePuy Orthopaedics Inc., DePuy Inc., DePuy International Ltd and parent company Johnson and Johnson that a case is to be heard against them in Ireland, but is a necessary point of law as the primary defendant and its subsidiaries are not incorporated in Ireland and normally outside of Irish jurisdiction.
Once notices of the case are served, solicitors acting on behalf of the claimant – Irene Pierson of Navan, County Meath – will then be able to serve notice of proceedings when a court date is confirmed on the four overseas defendants, plus Johnson and Johnson (Ireland) Ltd and the Health Service Executive.
Before permission for the notices to be served was granted, Mr Justice Michael Peart heard how Ms Pierson had received a DePuy Orthopaedics hip implant at the Navan General Hospital for her right hip in March 2007 and had returned to the hospital in September 2008 to have a DePuy Orthopaedics hip replacement system implanted in her right hip.
In her claim for compensation, Ms Pierson alleges that she entered into a contract with the Health Service Executive for two hip replacements which were not of merchantable quality and which have both started to malfunction. In support of her claim, Ms Pierson´s solicitors provided a letter she had received in October 2010 informing her of the worldwide recall of DePuy hip replacement systems. It is claimed in the action that the six named defendants have all acted in breach of contract.
Ms Pierson´s claim for compensation against DePuy Orthopaedics is the first of 605 which have been authorised by the Injuries Board for court action in Ireland since the worldwide recall of the DePuy ASR Hip Replacement Systems was announced in August 2010. The first court cases in America against DePuy Orthopaedics have already been scheduled for January 2013.