Multnomah Court Judge denies I-Flow's request for new trial

Apr 2 2010

Judge Youlee You today denied a request by defendant I-Flow for a new trial in Multnomah County Circuit Court. The ruling follows the January 22 jury verdict against the pain pump manufacturer. Jurors awarded $5.475 million for the destruction of Portland-area resident Matthew Beale's right shoulder. They found the damage was caused by the On-Q Painbuster infusion pain pump, manufactured and marketed by I-Flow.

"My clients are happy Judge You validated the jury's decision," said Portland attorney John Coletti, who represented Beale. "Jurors understood that a basic consumer safety boundary was violated by I-Flow. I believe they recognized that any one of them or one of their loved ones could have been injured by this device and wanted to prevent other people from injury in the future."

Coletti expects the defendant manufacturer to appeal the case to the Oregon Appeals Court. He expressed confidence the Multnomah County jurors would be validated again. He was assisted at trial by co-counsel Tom Powers, of Williams Love O'Leary and Powers.

Jurors awarded Matthew Beale $1.275 million in economic damages and $3 million in noneconomic damages. They awarded his wife, Krista Beale, $1.2 million loss of consortium damages.

Matthew Beale was physically active prior to use of the I-Flow device. He injured his shoulder throwing a football and suffered a minor tear in his bicep tendon. After routine arthroscopic surgery to repair the tear, his doctor prescribed an I-Flow pain pump.

Evidence presented at trial demonstrated that the medical device dissolved the cartilage in Beale's shoulder by continually bathing the shoulder joint with pain medication. The result was the total loss of the cartilage in the shoulder joint of his dominate arm with bone rubbing against bone, causing debilitating pain. The severe loss of cartilage creates a condition called chondrolysis.

Coletti said the use of shoulder pain pumps over the last few years has caused numerous cases of chondrolysis across the country. Coletti explained that I-Flow requested FDA approval for its pain pump four times and each time was turned down for lack of safety data, but I-Flow marketed the product to doctors anyway.

In November 2009, the FDA issued a warning that it had never approved the use of pain pumps in shoulder-joint surgeries.

Source John Coletti