In re Guidant Corp. Implantable Defibrillators Products Liability Litigation

Numerous actions brought by thousands of claimants (claimants) (plaintiffs) against Guidant Corporation (Guidant) and other implantable cardiac medical device manufacturers (defendants) were consolidated and transferred to a single jurisdiction by the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (MDL). Attorney Patrick Mulligan represented many of the claimants in the MDL. Discovery was conducted and trial dates set, but prior to the first trial in July 2007, the parties reached a tentative settlement agreement. Further negotiations resulted in a Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) signed on December 10, 2007, for a total settlement fund of $240 million. On July 20, 2007, Mulligan informed his clients that the tentative settlement had been reached and assured them that information regarding individual allocations was forthcoming. Mulligan contacted his clients again in February 2008 to advise them of a recent United States Supreme Court decision that would deprive them of the opportunity to receive financial recovery from Guidant if they declined the current settlement offer. However, that correspondence did not include information about individual allocations; clients were merely advised about the aggregate settlement of $240 million to be distributed among 8,550 claimants. Mulligan provided no information regarding allotments until January 2009, at which time Mulligan sent checks for allotments to his clients along with the breakdown of the amount and a liability release. However, contrary to what he told his clients, Mulligan received the court’s approved allocation plan in March 2008. Many of Mulligan’s clients complained to the court that Mulligan failed to respond to their correspondence and pushed them to accept the settlement without individual allotment information. The court called a status conference regarding the complaints and took the matter of Mulligan’s discipline under advisement.