Mo. Federal Judge Refuses to Dismiss Medtronic’s Defenses in Aortic Graft Case

ST. LOUIS - A Missouri federal judge has refused to dismiss a majority of Medtronic's affirmative defenses in a wrongful death case accusing it of negligently recommending that a surgeon use the wrong size graft in a patient's aorta during heart surgery.

However, in the May 14 order, Judge Audrey G. Fleissig of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri granted the plaintiff’s motion to strike the defenses of lack of a feasible alternative design and adequate warning, ruling they are immaterial to the plaintiff’s negligence claim.

Eva Westmoreland's mother underwent heart surgery, during which the surgeon …