Calif. Man Alleges Injuries Caused by Defective Ethicon Surgical Stapler

LOS ANGELES — A California man has sued Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary Ethicon, accusing them of failing to warn patients and doctors that their recalled curved intraluminal surgical staplers were defectively manufactured and could cause serious injury and death.

In a July 9 complaint filed in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the plaintiff accuses J&J and Ethicon of failing to ensure that the staplers were free of manufacturing defects, and of failing to report complaints that the staplers were misfiring.

Ethicon’s curved intraluminal staplers are used in the gastrointestinal tract for creating connections between structures (anastomoses) in …