IVC Filters Legal Help

If you or someone you care about has suffered injuries due to the use of IVC Filters, it is important to speak to our experienced Woodland Hills IVC Filter injury attorneys—anyone injured by IVC filters deserves compensation for their injuries and our skilled attorneys can help you get the compensation you deserve.

An Inferior Vena Cava (IVC) filter is a small blood filtering device. The IVC is a large vein in the body that carries blood from the lower portion of the body into the heart. When a patient needs an IVC filter, it is surgically placed in the Inferior Vena Cava to filter blood that flows into the heart and other organs in the upper body.

Because the IVC carries blood from the lower body to the upper body, it can be especially dangerous if a blood clot forms in the IVC. A blood clot in the IVC can travel to the lungs and can potentially cause serious problems such as a pulmonary embolism. A pulmonary embolism occurs when the blood clot blocks an artery in the lungs, which can lead to shortness of breath, coughing, or chest pain, and can ultimately be life-threatening.

When a person has blood clots, or is at risk for developing clots, many people turn to blood thinners. However, not all patients can take blood thinners and so, the IVC filter can be used. The goal of an IVC filter is to prevent blood clots from getting into the lungs and causing a pulmonary embolism. The filter is placed into the IVC during a short surgery—as blood flows through the IVC, the filter stops blood clots from getting through. The filter can permanently remain in the IVC or it can be removed at a later time.

While ideally the IVC filter protects individuals from the harms of a pulmonary embolism, the IVC filter device itself can actually be harmful to patients who have them. Patients have experienced many harmful effects of the IVC filter, including:

• Breaking Filters: In some patients, the filter itself has fallen out of place or broken into pieces. When this occurs, the filter becomes dangerous as filter pieces can flow through the blood stream and cause damage to vein walls or organs. In some cases, IVC filters cannot be removed after they are implanted and thus can put patients at risk for these side effects later on.
• Blood Clotting: Although the filter is designed to prevent blood clots from passing into the lungs, in some cases, blood clots form when and where the IVC device is placed—this only causes further problems rather than protecting patients from clots.
• Chest Pain: Many patients with the filter experience chest pain and drops in blood pressure. This can be accompanied by difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, nausea, and lightheadedness.
• Death and Other Serious Side Effects: The IVC filter has resulted in very serious side effects including hemorrhaging, internal bleeding, and strokes. In some instances, patients have suffered a pulmonary embolism, the exact issue the device is designed to prevent, because the device failed or fell apart. These serious side effects can ultimately be deadly.

Because of these serious side effects, many patients who have suffered injuries from their IVC filters or family members of those who have died due to IVC failure have participated in mass tort litigation against the companies that manufactured the device. The most popular companies that make the IVC filters include C.R. Bard and Cook Medical, among others. C.R. Bard is a New Jersey company that was originally founded in the early 1900s and specializes in medical devices. Cook Medical, founded in the 1960s in Indiana, also manufactures various types of medical devices.

The central claims in current litigation revolve around the argument that the IVC filter device built by these companies is not safe—it can break into pieces or fail, causing many of the serious side effects listed above. As a result, the IVC filter device creates an unreasonable risk of these harmful side effects. The litigation argues that the manufacturing companies like Bard and Cook knew the device could cause these serious side effects, including death, but did not warn doctors or patients of the potential problems.

Thousands of patients who have been harmed by IVC filter devices have sought compensation through mass tort litigation. Mass torts occur when many people suffer similar injuries from a particular product, which is the case with IVC litigation. This type is litigation is designed to help those injured get financial compensation for the costs and losses caused by their IVC filter injuries.

If you have been injured by an IVC filter, or have lost a loved one as a result of IVC filter defects or failure, you may be entitled to financial compensation. To find out more details about possible compensation in your case, and to get your mass tort questions answered, you should speak with a knowledgeable Woodland Hills IVC filter injury attorney at Walch Law as soon as possible.

Our attorneys have years of experience helping clients or their family members who have suffered from all types of personal injuries, including mass tort injuries. Mass tort litigation can feel overwhelming—the idea of going up against a large corporation can make you feel hopeless and small. However, it is important to remember that if you have been harmed by a faulty device, manufacturers need to be held accountable, and you deserve compensation for your injuries and other losses. Our attorneys can help handle your case and will help make sure you are treated fairly by the company on the other side.

We offer a FREE case consultation to anyone wanting more information about joining mass tort litigation for IVC filter injuries. To schedule your free consultation, you can contact us by filing out our online form or by calling our office at 866-465-8792 today!