› $150,000,000 verdict in personal injury case
An Oregon Appeals Court denied a request by defendant I-Flow for a new trial in Mulnomah County Circuit Court following a January 22 jury verdict against the pain pump manufacturer. Jurors awarded $5.475 million for damaging the right shoulder of Portland, Oregon, resident Matthew Beale, placing blame on the On-Q Painbuster infusion pain pump device manufactured and marketed by I-Flow.
Pain pumps are devices designed to deliver medication directly into the surgical site to manage pan after surgery. While effective for pain management, physicians began seeing more and more patients suffering from a debilitating condition known as chondrolysis following use of shoulder pain pumps. This concern was validated in a recent study by The American Journal of Sports Medicine, which identified a specific type of chondrolysis, Postarthroscopic Glenohumeral Chondrolysis (PAGCL), associated with the use of shoulder pain pumps. As a result, hundreds of people harmed by the devices have filed suit against the manufacturers of pain pumps.
Mathew McKeown, 23, of Blue Ash, Ohio, dreamed of playing pro ball. He was an all-city football player in high school and earned a scholarship to play for Miami. Making it to the NFL was just a matter of time.
But during a game in October 2006, McKeown’s left shoulder was injured while trying to recover a fumble. Doctors implanted the catheter of a On-Q PainBuster pain pump manufactured by I-Flow into his shoulder joint. For up to 72 hours, medication gradually dripped into his shoulder and slowly began eating away at the cartilage.
The On-Q PainBuster pain pump manufactured and marketed by I-Flow Corporation, is now being used by obstetricians and gynecologists to ease a woman’s pain caused from the incision made for Caesarean section deliveries and hysterectomies, according to the Fort Wayne, Indiana News-Sentinel.
