Salinero v. Johnson & Johnson
| Decision Date | 29 April 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 20-10900,20-10900 |
| Citation | 995 F.3d 959 |
| Parties | Charlotte SALINERO, Dr. Efrain Salinero, Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. JOHNSON & JOHNSON, Ethicon, Inc., Defendants - Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Mathew Daniel Gutierrez, Daniel J. DiMatteo, James L. Ferraro, James Louis Ferraro, Jr., Leslie Rothenberg, The Ferraro Law Firm, PA, Miami, FL, Gabriel Santiago Saade, The Saade Law Firm, P.A., Coral Gables, FL, for Plaintiffs - Appellants
Susanna Moldoveanu, Butler Snow, LLP, Memphis, TN, Charles A. Byrd, Chad R. Hutchinson, Butler Snow, LLP, Ridgeland, MS, Paul V. Cassisa, Jr., Kari L. Sutherland, Butler Snow LLP, Oxford, MS, Philip J. Combs, Thomas Combs & Spann, PLLC, Charleston, WV, Shayna S. Cook, Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP, Chicago, IL, Andrea Cox, Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr, LLP, Miami, FL, Andrew Russell Kruppa, Amanda Elizabeth Preston, Squire Patton Boggs (US) LLP, Miami, FL, Nils Burton Snell, Butler Snow LLP, Fort Washington, PA, Michael Andrew Snowden, Butler Snow LLP, Chicago, IL, for Defendants - Appellees
Before LAGOA, ANDERSON and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
In 2012, Charlotte Salinero underwent surgery to address pelvic organ prolapse. Her doctor, Jaime Sepulveda, implanted Artisyn Y-Mesh, a polypropylene mesh designed and manufactured by Ethicon, Inc. But after surgery, Mrs. Salinero suffered new health issues, which she attributed to the mesh implant. She underwent surgery again to remove it and, with her husband, sued Ethicon and its parent company, Johnson & Johnson, in the Southern District of Florida for failure to warn of the adverse health consequences of an Artisyn Y-Mesh implant (among other claims).
The defendants successfully moved for summary judgment, arguing that Florida's learned intermediary doctrine operates as a complete defense in this case, breaking the chain of causation. The doctrine imposes on medical device manufacturers a duty to adequately warn physicians, rather than patients, of the risks their products pose. The Salineros claim, however, that the doctrine is unavailable to these defendants because Dr. Sepulveda has a long-standing financial relationship with both defendants and thus it was not reasonable for them to expect him to adequately communicate the risks surrounding an Artisyn Y-Mesh implant. The Salineros ask us to create a "financial bias" exception to the learned intermediary doctrine, although the Florida courts have never recognized -- much less discussed -- one.
As a federal court sitting in diversity, we are Erie bound to follow the decisions of the Florida courts. Without any indication from Florida's appellate courts that they would create a "financial bias" exception to the learned intermediary doctrine insofar as it applies to physicians, we hold that the learned intermediary doctrine is available and that, under the facts of this case, it plainly entitles the defendants to summary judgment on the failure-to-warn claim. Dr. Sepulveda's testimony makes it crystal clear that he was both aware of the risks surrounding the Artisyn Y-Mesh implant and stood by his decision to use the implant to treat Mrs. Salinero's prolapse. Under Florida law, an inadequate warning could not be the proximate cause of Mrs. Salinero's injuries and, therefore, the learned intermediary doctrine bars a failure-to-warn claim. Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
These are the essential facts surrounding this controversy. In 2012, at the age of 56, Charlotte Salinero suffered from a persistent vaginal bulge and constipation. A doctor referred her to Dr. Jaime Sepulveda, a board-certified surgeon in gynecology, female pelvic medicine, and reconstructive surgery. Dr. Sepulveda diagnosed Mrs. Salinero with pelvic organ prolapse, a potentially debilitating condition where one or more of the pelvic organs -- such as the bladder, rectum, or uterus -- shift downward into the vagina, and recommended corrective surgery. Over the next few months, Mrs. Salinero's condition worsened into a Stage IV prolapse, the most severe form. Mrs. Salinero's prolapse was so advanced that, at times, her uterus extended outside her vaginal opening.
Mrs. Salinero elected to have surgery, which Dr. Sepulveda and a team of surgeons performed in December 2012 at South Miami Hospital in Miami, Florida. One of the surgeries performed was an abdominal sacrocolpopexy
, during which Dr. Sepulveda implanted Artisyn Y-Mesh. Artisyn Y-Mesh is a prescription medical device made out of polypropylene mesh. It is designed and manufactured by Ethicon, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Artisyn Y-Mesh works as a bridging material, which is implanted through the abdomen to provide support to the pelvic organs. According to Dr. Sepulveda, approximately half of the mesh implant dissolves into the body, while the other half stays in place to provide support to the pelvic organs. Although Dr. Sepulveda discussed the risks of the surgery with Mrs. Salinero, including the risks surrounding the use of a mesh implant, he did not specifically recommend Artisyn Y-Mesh to her. Instead, he unilaterally chose to use it as the implant in the surgery.
A few years after the sacrocolpopexy
, Mrs. Salinero began suffering from further health issues, including bleeding, pain, vaginal discharge, bowel obstruction, urinary tract infection, and constipation. In April 2017, a doctor diagnosed Mrs. Salinero with a rectovaginal vesical fistula -- or connection between organs -- which Mrs. Salinero attributed to the Artisyn Y-Mesh implant. Later that year, she underwent surgery to remove the implant, which was again performed by Dr. Sepulveda and a team of surgeons. Dr. Sepulveda testified that he separated the adhesion within Mrs. Salinero's bladder and rectum, identified the implant, disconnected, dissected, and lifted it out in one piece, but that there were "two little segments underneath that [he] took later on." Despite the removal, Mrs. Salinero continued to suffer from permanent, debilitating health complications, including fecal incontinence, small bowel obstructions, chronic pain, and dyspareunia (pain during intercourse), which she alleges are due to the Artisyn Y-Mesh.
On September 6, 2018, the Salineros sued Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. They alleged that a polypropylene mesh is "biologically incompatible with human tissue and promotes an immune response in a large subset of the population[,] ... [which] promotes degradation of the polypropylene mesh, as well as the pelvic tissue, and can contribute to the formation of severe adverse reactions." They also lodged several product liability claims against the defendants, though only one -- failure to warn -- is relevant in this appeal.1 The Salineros claimed that at the time of the surgery, the Artisyn Y-Mesh Instructions for Use ("IFU") failed to properly and adequately warn of the risks related to the implantation and use of the Artisyn Y-Mesh and, therefore, the defendants were strictly liable for Mrs. Salinero's injuries.
In May 2019, the defendants moved for summary judgment. As for the failure-to-warn claim, the defendants argued that under Florida law they only had a duty to warn the physician -- in this case, Dr. Sepulveda -- rather than Mrs. Salinero, and that they properly discharged their duty. In support, they cited to Dr. Sepulveda's deposition, in which he testified that he believed he was fully apprised of the risks of implanting Artisyn Y-Mesh before Mrs. Salinero's surgery. He unambiguously said that he viewed his December 2012 decision to use Artisyn Y-Mesh in Mrs. Salinero's surgery as an appropriate one, even knowing exactly what adverse effects she developed after the surgery. When asked whether he stood by his decision to use Artisyn Y-Mesh with Mrs. Salinero, he responded, "[y]es." When asked whether he still believed that the surgery he performed in December 2012 was the "best option" for Mrs. Salinero, again he said "[y]es." And when asked if he thought "that the sacrocolpopexy
with ArtisynTM Y-Mesh was a safe and effective surgery for Mrs. Salinero," he again responded, "[y]es, I believe that." Dr. Sepulveda explained that Artisyn Y-Mesh remained his "preferred implant" for similar surgeries and that he would use Artisyn Y-Mesh for an implant at the next opportunity.
The Salineros opposed the motion, urging that Dr. Sepulveda was not an "objective" practitioner and therefore his testimony should not be relied upon to establish the learned intermediary defense. For support, they pointed to Dr. Sepulveda's long-running relationship with both Ethicon and Johnson & Johnson, a relationship that goes back decades and has been very lucrative to Dr. Sepulveda. The record shows that Dr. Sepulveda served as an expert witness for Ethicon in over 20 cases and as a consultant on product evaluations, mesh product trials, and training programs. Dr. Sepulveda also reviewed cases and performed consulting work for Johnson & Johnson. He admitted to earning some $2 million from Johnson & Johnson over the course of his career. He explained that he does this work for the defendants "to continue training" and "to understand the anatomy better and to keep [himself] in shape for all the surgeries." There is no evidence that Dr. Sepulveda performed any work for either Ethicon or Johnson & Johnson specifically related to Artisyn Y-Mesh.
The Salineros argued that this uncontested evidence demonstrated that Dr. Sepulveda was biased toward the defendants, therefore barring the application of the learned intermediary doctrine as an affirmative defense. They also claimed that there were triable issues of fact as to Dr. Sepulveda's knowledge, the adequacy of the IFU warnings, and whether Dr. Sepulveda actually would have prescribed Artisyn Y-Mesh if he had received adequate warnings.
The district court acknowledged that Florida's co...
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