The POWER 30: Genevieve Zimmerman

Meshbesher & Spence

Genevieve Zimmerman has nearly settled about 2,000 plaintiffs’ cases in In the re Smith & Nephew Birmingham Hip Resurfacing Products Liability pending multi-district litigation venued in the District of Maryland. The MDL includes claims brought on behalf of patients who allegedly required revision surgery as a result of defective BHR product.

While at deadline the ink wasn’t quite dry on the documents, the almost-settlement has happened while Zimmerman is co-lead counsel for the MDL. “It’s something I’m very proud of,” she said.

The amount is confidential, as usual in cases like this.

Zimmerman said that there is evidence that the company knew of “troubling” failure rates in the devices but didn’t tell doctors. The devices employ hip resurfacing within the hip socket using a cobalt-chromium alloy that allegedly caused metals to spread into surrounding tissues.

Zimmerman is part of other well-known cases in Minnesota and Wisconsin. She and partner/husband Jake Zimmerman secured a $450,000 verdict against  James Fetzer, a Wisconsin author of “Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.”

Zimmerman is also co-lead counsel for plaintiffs in the MDL against 3M over the Bair Hugger, a device that uses forced air in warming blankets during surgery, which allegedly causes infection by distributing bacteria. That case is pending after a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Joan Ericksen that plaintiffs’ experts were excluded and the case was dismissed, to be reversed by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2021.

Zimmerman now has moved to disqualify Ericksen and Magistrate Judge David Schultz. Plaintiffs allege Ericksen has shown animus toward them and their counsel. They also want to disqualify Schultz because he owned 72 shares of 3M stock. He reportedly said the stock was purchased by a money manager and he sold it when he became aware of it.