On June 1, 2011, Judge Martinotti hosted a joint MDL/State Case Management Conference in Bergen County, New Jersey, along with the Honorable David A. Katz, U.S.D.J., who is presiding over the federal cases in the MDL in Ohio.  As previously discussed, centralizing the state and federal cases will streamline the lawsuits, allowing the parties to avoid duplicative discovery and inconsistent rulings from different judges. 
 

At the conference, the parties were able to agree on various discovery issues, including the form and content of the Plaintiff and Defendant fact sheets as well as the short form Complaint and Answer.The next Case Management Conference has been scheduled for late July 2011.

If you have had a hip replacement, which used one of the recalled DePuy devices, you can contact Stark & Stark and speak to one of the Mass Tort attorneys, free of charge, who can help assess any claims that you might have against the DePuy manufacturers.