Retired Officer Wins $79.8 Million After Defective Ethicon Stapler Causes Permanent Colostomy

Florence Kuhlmann spent her career as a San Jose police officer. In 2012, she underwent what was expected to be routine hemorrhoid surgery. The surgeon used an Ethicon PPH03 circular stapler, a device manufactured by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon Endo-Surgery. The stapler misfired.

Instead of firing cleanly, the PPH03 stapled the upper portion of Kuhlmann's rectum to the lower portion, occluding the canal. Within days, her bowel had ruptured and she developed a serious infection. Surgeons performed a diverting colostomy to manage the damage. That colostomy became permanent.

Alexander Law Group, led by lead trial counsel Nina Shapirshteyn, filed suit in Alameda County Superior Court, alleging the stapler was defective and that Ethicon had known about the problem. At trial, the team proved that the PPH03 used on Kuhlmann came from a recalled lot. Insufficient lubrication inside the device created excessive internal friction, requiring more force to fire than the mechanism could safely deliver. Testing showed roughly one-third of staplers from the affected lots demonstrated the same force-to-fire defect. Multiple operating room personnel testified the device had been unusually difficult to fire, and incomplete staples recovered from Kuhlmann's body confirmed the malfunction.

Both Ethicon Endo-Surgery and its parent company JJHCS were found strictly liable. In December 2015, the jury awarded $9.8 million in compensatory damages and $70 million in punitive damages, a 7:1 ratio, for a total verdict of $79.8 million. Ethicon had declined a pre-trial settlement demand of $8 million.

Ethicon appealed the punitive award. In 2018, the California Court of Appeal, First District, reduced the punitive component to $19.6 million, applying a 2:1 cap and finding that any higher ratio would violate due process under the circumstances. Combined with the unchanged compensatory award, Kuhlmann's final judgment totaled $29.4 million.