August 28, 2014 by Brad Perriello
Zimmer Holdings wants a federal judge to impose sanctions against the lawyers in 3 cases from the multi-district litigation filed over its knee implants, claiming that the cases should never have been brought in the 1st place.
Zimmer (NYSE:ZMH) asked an Illinois federal judge this week to sanction a trio of lawyers representing plaintiffs in the multi-district litigation brought over its knee implants, saying the attorneys should never have brought the cases in the 1st place.
Zimmer wants Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer of the U.S. District Court for Northern Illinois, who is overseeing the MDL, to force the lawyers to cover its costs in preparing to try the cases as part of the bellwether process, according to court documents.
The 3 cases – Shoat v. Zimmer, Davis v. Zimmer and Teague v. Zimmer – were selected by Zimmer as potential bellwethers after 5 of its initial 6 selections were withdrawn for lack of merit, according to the documents. But after Zimmer began the discovery process for the suits, lawyers for the 3 plaintiffs said the cases wouldn’t stand up after all.
“When Zimmer’s attorneys inquired of plaintiffs’ attorneys whether they intended to serve case-specific expert reports, the individual plaintiffs’ attorneys in the 3 Zimmer-selected cases (Charles Johnson (Shoat), Sheila Bossier (Davis), and Karen Beyea-Schroeder (Teague)) responded by email – in lockstep language – that ‘[a]s the case has progressed it does not appear that it can be supported by a case specific expert report for a personal injury claim,'” Zimmer alleged.
