Johnson & Johnson has stated that it will appeal the verdict, typically, in such cases in Texas, the appeals court scales back the initial compensation amount.

In a significant ruling, a federal jury in Dallas ordered Johnson & Johnson and its DePuy Orthopaedics unit to pay more than $1 billion to six plaintiffs who were injured by its Pinnacle hip implants.

The jurors came to the conclusion that the J&J’s metal-on-metal Pinnacle hip implants were of defective design and that the company failed to warn consumers about the risks.

J&J has responded to the verdict saying it will immediately go on appeal and is committed to defending itself and DePuy from any further litigation over the Pinnacle devices.

The company is facing more than 8,000 lawsuits over its Pinnacle hip implants, said J&J in a statement.

All of the 6 plaintiffs, who have been awarded more than $1 billion, are residents of California. All of them have been implanted with the device, due to which they suffered bone erosion, experienced tissue death and faced other injuries arising out of design flaws of the device.

The plaintiffs have said, the companies that have promoted the devices, have stated that they are longer lasting than those which include plastic or ceramic materials.

DePuy and J&J have denied any wrongdoing stemming from the development and marketing of the devices.

As per Mark Lanier, a plaintiff’s lawyer, the total verdict of $1.041 billion included $32 million in compensatory damages. The rest were punitive damages.

Typically, verdicts of this size of scaled back by courts.

J&J attorneys will now ask the appeals court to postpone any additional trials over the defects in the implant.

Incidentally, DePuy stopped its sale of the metal-on-metal Pinnacle devices in 2013 when the FDA strengthened its artificial hip regulations.

In 2010, the company had recalled ASR metal-on-metal hip devices due to high failure rates.

With this news hitting the market, J&J’s shares fell by 38 cents to $111 in after-hours trading.

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Tags: artificial hip regulations, compensatory damages, consumers, DePuy Orthopaedics, failed to warn risks, FDA, federal jury, hip implant, litigation, metal-on-metal, Pinnacle, plantiff, punitive damages