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

          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.
          "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.
          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.

For more information on this case, please click here