In the wake of the highly publicized hip replacement recall made by Johnson & Johnson medical devices unit DePuy Orthopaedics, there is a growing number of complaints and lawsuits filed everywhere. This is not surprising, as tens of thousands of people have been recipients of the said defective hip implants, and a significant percentage of them are presumed affected.

If you or someone you know has also received DePuy’s hip replacement device (specifically their ASR hip replacement system), you should know you have the right to make a compensation claim if you believe (and can prove) that the implant you’ve received is indeed defective or headed toward premature failure.

It is important to note that not all of DePuy’s ASR hip implants a defective. While the currently identified failure rate is around 13%, which is unacceptable and far exceeds the normal rate of 5%, this simply means that approximately nine out of every ten of those who have received the implants are not affected at all. So even if you have indeed received a DePuy hip implant (especially if your hip replacement surgery took place before July 2010), you may not even be affected.

But if somehow you have been experiencing unpleasant symptoms such as pain in the hip area and other complications, and you are not very sure if you have the specific recalled DePuy hip implant model in you, you should contact your surgeon for verification and get some legal representation.

Taking timely action
Acting swiftly in filing a lawsuit is important in order to avoid losing your “window of opportunity. In certain countries or states, something that is called the “statute of limitations” is being enforced. What this means is that there is an “expiration date” for the filing of a lawsuit related to a sustained physical damage or injury. In the case of DePuy’s hip replacement recall, the factors that matter would include when and where you had your hip replacement surgery, what kind of complications you have suffered or endured, and for how long you have been enduring the said complications. Courts will usually only accept the filing of such a lawsuit within a set time. Once you exceed it, not even a top-gun lawyer could help you.

Another good reason why you should not wait too long before taking action is, of course, the urgency or intensity of the pain you may have been enduring—you may need to have to undergo what is called a “revision surgery” to either adjust or remove the artificial hip implant, and such a surgery is usually much more expensive than the original one, not to mention more painful and complicated.

Normally, you can fill out a compensation evaluation form to determine if your situation qualifies you to make the claims you want. For instance, it will have to be determined if the symptoms you are experiencing are directly caused by the hip implant device, and what exactly is the range and extent of such symptoms.

As this is a well-publicized tort, you will find that many legal firms are more than willing to assist you in filing a lawsuit. In fact, most of the leading firms in the US have set up websites to reach out to as many possible defective hip implant plaintiffs as possible. Even a casual “DePuy hip replacement lawsuit” search online can easily fetch you dozens of good leads in this area, and almost everyone is screaming “we are the best and most experienced.”

Depending on your discussion with your legal representative, and also based on your medical evaluation, you may proceed in going with either a multidistrict litigation (or MDL) or join thousands of other plaintiffs like you in a class action suit. Each of the two legal means can offer you their distinct advantages or disadvantages. You will have to thoroughly discuss your options with an experienced lawyer, especially one who have long been engaged in cases similar to this. But for starters, MDL can be lengthy, but it may enable you to get better compensation, especially if you are with a very good and well-experienced lawyer. On the other hand, a class action suit is easier to do—you only have to join thousands of other plaintiffs. Recent developments in the on-going legal investigation into the whole hip replacement recall seem to favor the thousands of plaintiffs. At the end of the day, however, what really matters is making sure you actually get what is due, and to finally get rid of that pain and move on with your life.