Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
You’ve had a hip replacement or a knee replacement that needs to be replaced again or revised.
What do you need to do and what steps do you need to take to ensure that any evidence that
can be used in a potential lawsuit be preserved? My name is Dan Burke and I’m a lawyer at
Parker Waichman in New York and I deal with questions like this all the time. Typically,
when a hip replacement or knee replacement is scheduled, you know in advance who your
physician is going to be and what hospital or facility the surgery is going to take place
in. It’s important in lawsuits like this that the knee joint itself, or the hip joint
itself, and surrounding tissue be preserved. And by preserved I mean it needs to be collected
from the doctor and from the facility, bagged and preserved with the appropriate solution
so that that tissue and bone and implant and the materials surrounding the implant doesn’t
get damaged. How do you affect that as a consumer, as a patient who’s going to see the doctor?
Well, it’s something you can do on your own and ask that the doctor preserve the device
for you and ask the facility preserve the device for you. But if you are going to pursue
a lawsuit, it’s better that you have your attorney take those steps for you. In certain
litigations such as the DePuy ASR hip implant litigation which concerns a particular type
of hip implant that was recalled in August of 2010, the court actually has a protocol
for how these devices are to be preserved. And there are a number of steps that we request
that physicians take and hospitals take to preserve the material properly, in the event
that this stuff needs to be used as evidence somewhere down the line at trial. What we
will typically do is send a letter by fax or send a letter by – and – send a letter
by mail both to facility, the surgeon who’s going to be revising your implant, and asked
that they preserve this material in a particular way. Then we typically have a third party,
a company that we hire, who stores the material in a facility where it’s protected and it
can also make sure that the chain of evidence and the chain of custody of the evidence is
protected so that the defendants can’t challenge the use of the evidence somewhere at trial.
Again, if you have an upcoming hip or knee replacement surgery or revision surgery, give
me a call. I can answer any questions that you may have concerning the preservation of
the device and the preservation of evidence in the event that your case ever needs to
go to trial. Again, my name is Dan Burke. I’m a lawyer at Parker Waichman. Thanks
again for taking the time to listen.