The Recorder, "Faulty Defibrillator Opens Guidant to Enormous Lawsuits -- Again"

          There's nothing like a short circuit inside thousands of people's chest cavities to jumpstart plaintiff lawyers and shock the heart of a corporate defendant.
          That has become clear over the past month, with a medical-device maker that was already squaring off with several local plaintiff firms suddenly the target of new -- and possibly costly -- litigation by some of the same lawyers.
          Guidant's June 17 recall of 50,000 defibrillators comes in the midst of litigation over another defective product -- and just before Johnson & Johnson was set to finalize its acquisition of Guidant for $25 billion.
          With that deal now on uncertain footing and tens of thousands of patients with irregular heartbeats contemplating more surgery, Guidant is back where it was two years ago: a soft target for the plaintiff bar, reportedly under federal investigation, and certainly on the defensive. Only now, it is facing multiple suits over two defective products.
          "This new wave of litigation is coming right in the middle of this other litigation," said Elizabeth Cabraser, a partner with Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein. "It's very unusual."
          She filed the first defibrillator suit in Indianapolis federal court more than two weeks before the recall, after a client reported a problem with the defibrillator.
          "We were interested in Guidant because we were litigating against them already," she said.
          And she's not the only one. Cabraser is in a lineup of local attorneys who've been aggressively pursuing Guidant for years. "The plaintiff bar in San Francisco has definitely played a lead role" in going after Guidant, said Michael O'Donnell, a partner at Wheeler Trigg Kennedy in Denver who defends Guidant.
          And for good reason, the plaintiff lawyers say.
          "Guidant is great, because we know there's been deception before," said Nancy Hersh, who is planning to file at least three suits against Guidant on behalf of people injured by short-circuiting defibrillators.
          In 2003, Guidant pleaded guilty to 10 criminal charges and agreed to pay $92.4 million to the federal government -- and sign a "corporate integrity agreement" -- to settle charges that it failed to report major problems with a device used to treat aneurysms.