Louisville Federal Jury Awards Sadler Family $7.24 Million Over Defective Cochlear Implant

The case centered on the Advanced Bionics HiRes90K, a cochlear implant surgically placed in the skull to give deaf children a sense of sound. The Sadler family of Vine Grove, Kentucky, chose the device for their young daughter, who was deaf and received the implant at age four. For a while it worked as intended.

Then the implant failed. Moisture had seeped past a seal and reached the electronics the seal was meant to protect. Years after the device was placed, it sent a series of violent electrical shocks through the girl's head. She convulsed, screamed, vomited, and collapsed. Surgeons removed the failed implant and put in a replacement. Testing on the recovered device showed the sealed component held more than 30 percent moisture, roughly 60 times the allowable amount of half of one percent.

The HiRes90K had a history. Advanced Bionics first learned of the moisture problem in 2004 and ran a limited six-week recall, then pulled devices again in March 2006. The defect was the same each time: moisture working its way inside and causing sudden pain, loud noises, and intermittent failures. Ronald Johnson, the attorney for the Sadlers, told the jury that the company had switched to a cheaper feedthrough part from an outside vendor and kept selling implants while it knew the seals were prone to leak.

The trial ran in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in Louisville. It was the first case anywhere in which a jury heard claims over the HiRes90K. Johnson asked the jurors not only to compensate the family but to find that the company had acted with reckless disregard for the children who depended on the device.

In April 2013 the jury agreed. It awarded $994,000 in compensatory damages for the harm to the girl and her family, then added $6.25 million in punitive damages after finding that the company recklessly disregarded patient safety. The total reached $7.24 million. Shannon Ragland of the Kentucky Trial Court Review called it the third largest jury award in the Western District of Kentucky since 1998.

Advanced Bionics and its Swiss parent, Sonova, disputed the punitive award and said they would consider an appeal, arguing the girl was not permanently injured. Coverage from the time records that stated intent but no reduction or remittitur of the verdict. The jury had set the punitive portion at more than six times the compensatory damages.