Law firms in Houston and Charleston, W.V., have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a West Virginia woman and several others over what the plaintiffs allege is “a counterfeit, adulterated product.”
In the complaint filed Jan. 12 in the Charleston Division of the Southern District of West Virginia, attorneys J. Steve Mostyn and Mark C. Sparks of The Mostyn Law Firm in Houston and Harry F. Bell, Jr. of The Bell Law Firm in Charleston, W.V., accuse Boston Scientific Corp.; EMAI Plastic Raw Material Co, Ltd.; Proxy Biomedical Limited; and Luxilon Industries NV of manufacturing and marketing defective transvaginal mesh.
Court documents assert lead plaintiff Theresa Stevens was implanted with the BSC Obtryx-Halo Urethral Sling System on or around Oct. 27, 2014, stating the device in question was “made from counterfeit Marlex pellets smuggled out of China and illegally imported into the United States.”
They base the allegation on defendant BSC’s documents. According to the original petition, BSC improperly labeled most of the aforementioned documents as “confidential” in an effort to “conceal from the injured women and the public its illegal smuggling of counterfeit Marlex pellets and sale of counterfeit mesh.”
Meanwhile, BSC’s co-defendants EMAI, Proxy and Luxilon each are alleged to have violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
“Despite having knowledge that the resin product from China was counterfeit Marlex, BSC, EMAI, Proxy, and Luxilon fraudulently, imported, exported, and manufactured, marketed and sold mesh products which were manufactured with the counterfeit Marlex, but represented to the plaintiff, class members and the FDA that authentic Phillips Marlex was used to manufacture the mesh products,” the original petition says.
Stevens and her co-complainants argue the supposedly substandard device “is permanently part of their bodies.”
Consequently, they seek unspecified monetary damages and a jury trial.
Charleston Division of the Southern District of West Virginia Case No. 2:16-CV-0265