MLFCCA

SAINT JOHN, N.B. — Zoey Nicoles describes the moment he learned he would have to undergo a second hip replacement surgery, less than a year after originally going under the knife.

“The doctor’s office called to tell me the hip had been recalled,” the Saint John mortgage broker said Wednesday. “I thought it was a prank phone call.

“This is not like when you bring in your car for a recall. This is a part that is inside your body. It was scary.”

Several New Brunswickers are poised to join a nationwide class-action lawsuit filed in the province Wednesday against the maker of an artificial hip implant device.

The lawsuit seeks upward of $40 million for what is estimated to be between 1,500 and 4,000 Canadians who surgically received the artificial joint. There are 93,000 with the implant worldwide.

Nicoles is the lead plaintiff in New Brunswick.

The patients accuse DePuy Orthopedics of ignoring evidence the device was flawed and that the company, a subsidiary of Johnson Johnson, moved too slowly to recall it.

The defendants are Canadian and United States corporations involved in the design, manufacture, labelling, marketing and distribution of hip implants.

DePuy voluntarily recalled its ASR XL Acetabular System and its ASR Hip Resurfacing System hip device in August 2010 due to a higher-than-expected rate of revision surgery among its patients.

Nicoles underwent the hip surgery in Saint John in November 2009, but now has difficulty putting his socks on in the morning. He was hospitalized in 1996 after a school bus collided with the car he was driving.

“A hip replacement is supposed to be good for 20 years and people can only get maybe three installed because there is nothing left to attach it to,” said Nicoles, a former track athlete.

“Because I was 21 years old when this accident happened, I put the new hip off for 14 years and I dealt with the pain. But by November 2009, I had enough.”

Nicoles said he finally opted for a hip replacement and he wanted the best one available.

“The doctors reassured me it was the best one in the market, I should get 30-plus years out of it. … This was supposed to be the Cadillac of hips.

“Prior to getting the hip replacement, I couldn’t tie my shoes for 14 years because I couldn’t bend down far enough, but a few months after everything was good.”

Four months after the surgery he began to feel pain and his mobility began to worsen again.

“There was a week when I had serious groin pain, back pain, hip pain. I complained to my wife. It was snapping and cracking, and then in November I got the phone call.”

The nationwide class-action lawsuit is being spearheaded by Toronto-based law firm and class-action specialists Stevensons LLP.

Halifax-based Wagners Law Firm is handling the case in both New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

“There are a whole host of issues,” said lawyer Raymond Wagner. “For some people, problems have yet to emerge, while in others they have emerged and have had significant dysfunction as a result.”

The statement of claim alleges the DePuy implants were “designed and manufactured improperly” causing “serious bodily injury and economic loss.”

It also argues that the defendants were aware of the high degree of complication and failure rates associated with the implants before they were recalled.

It also alleges the defendants failed to give Health Canada “complete and accurate information concerning the implants by failing to disclose the risks on a timely basis.”

The implants had been distributed in Canada since at least Jan. 1, 2006, until their recall in August 2010, according to the statement of claim.

DePuy did not return calls for comment on the lawsuit.

New Brunswick Telegraph-Journal, Saint John Telegraph Journal