Plaintiff’s Expert Permitted to Opine About Safety of Pelvic Mesh Surgical Implantation Technique

PEORIA, Ill. — An Illinois federal judge has allowed a plaintiff’s expert to opine about the safety of the surgical technique used to implant Ethicon’s TVT-Obturator pelvic mesh device, ruling it is relevant to the plaintiffs’ strict liability design defect claim.

In a Sept. 1 order, Senior Judge Joe Billy McDade of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois explained that the device’s design includes not only the mesh sling that remains implanted in a patient’s body the specially selected surgical implantation technique with which it was paired.

On March 26, 2010, Christal Fisher was surgically implanted …