First TVT-Abbrevo Trial: California Jury Awards Coleen Perry $5.7 Million Against Ethicon

Coleen Perry was implanted with Ethicon's TVT-Abbrevo sling, a short-length polypropylene mesh device marketed by the Johnson & Johnson subsidiary to treat stress urinary incontinence. Over time the mesh eroded through vaginal tissue, causing severe and lasting pelvic pain. Her case became the first involving the TVT-Abbrevo specifically to reach a jury anywhere in the country.

By early 2015, tens of thousands of women had filed suits against Ethicon over its line of transvaginal mesh products. Perry's case was tried in state court in Bakersfield before a Kern County jury, separate from the federal multidistrict litigation pending in West Virginia. It was the fourth Ethicon plaintiff verdict overall, but the only one to that point centered on the TVT-Abbrevo model.

Plaintiff's counsel, led by Thomas Cartmell of Wagstaff & Cartmell LLP along with co-counsel Richard A. Freese and others, presented evidence that Ethicon chose to cut the mesh by laser rather than mechanically in order to reduce manufacturing costs, despite internal awareness that the cost-driven choice could affect the material's behavior in the body. The trial team argued Ethicon failed to adequately warn surgeons and patients of the risks of mesh erosion and degradation tied to the design.

On March 5, 2015, the jury found in Perry's favor on design defect and failure-to-warn claims, awarding $700,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages, for a total of $5.7 million. Ethicon indicated it would appeal and asserted it had strong grounds to do so. No published opinion documenting a reduction or reversal of the award has been identified.

The verdict drew national attention from both plaintiffs' lawyers tracking the Ethicon MDL and the medical-device industry at large. It marked the first time a jury specifically evaluated Ethicon's conduct in developing and marketing the TVT-Abbrevo, adding a new data point to a growing body of adverse verdicts against the company's mesh product line.