In the case, Josh Hicks and his client filed an amended complaint on April 2, 2020, alleging that the company implanted a shunt into the woman’s brain that was “defective and unreasonably dangerous at the time it left the hands of the Defendants”

Medical Lawsuits

o According to the April 2, 2020, second amended complaint in Gilliana R. Mills v. Johnson & Johnson, “In 2011, because the Plaintiff had memory loss, migraine headaches, problems putting sentences together correctly, but was still holding a job, her neurologist Dr. Acob, whose office is in Corbin, Kentucky, advised her to have a CODMAN shunt implanted into her brain, with a drainage catheter tube, removing brain fluid from her head, down her neck and chest into her stomach, and all under her skin.

“On January 7, 2011, a valve and shunt placement, manufactured by the Defendant CODMAN & SHURTLEFF, INC., a corporation owned at all times relevant hereto by corporation JOHNSON & JOHNSON, was implanted in the Plaintiff by surgeons of Lake Cumberland Neurosurgical Assoc. (hence, LCNA) at Lake Cumberland Regional Hospital, all in Pulaski County, Kentucky, and the incidents described herein of surgery, and follow-up medical care, and examinations, all occurred in Pulaski County, Kentucky.”[1]

o According to the April 2, 2020, second amended complaint in Gilliana R. Mills v. Johnson & Johnson, “At all times relevant to Plaintiff’s Complaint, the Defendants were in the business of designing, manufacturing, marketing, testing, labeling, selling and distributing the CODMAN HAKIM valve shunt. The product at issue was defective and unreasonably dangerous at the time it left the hands of the Defendants. The Defendants placed their product into the stream of commerce in a defective and unreasonably dangerous condition such that the foreseeable risks exceeded the benefits associated with the design of the product.

“The Defendants’ product was unreasonably and dangerously defective beyond the extent contemplated by ordinary users with ordinary knowledge regarding the product. Plaintiff was unaware of the danger as Defendants provided ineffective and inadequate warnings and instructions.”[2]

[1] Second Amended Complaint, Mills v. Johnson & Johnson, Case No. 19-cv-248, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky, Filed April 2, 2020
[2] Second Amended Complaint, Mills v. Johnson & Johnson, Case No. 19-cv-248, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky, Filed April 2, 2020