The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court recently revived a medical device lawsuit (Bennett v. C.R. Bard)1 centered on a fact issue regarding the plaintiff’s knowledge of a product defect as the cause of his condition. The case shines light on California’s discovery rule as an exception to the statute of limitations, wherein the clock starts running not at the date of injury, but rather when the injured party reasonably discovered the cause of the injury or harm.
Background
Following a severe motorcycle accident, plaintiff Craig Bennett received an inferior vena cava (IVC) filter implant designed to help trap large blood clots in 2015.
Later that same year, Bennett saw a television advertisement warning that the product could cause serious complications to organs located near the device, including fracture, migration, tilt, and perforation. From that time until 2021, Bennett made multiple attempts to have the device removed, and—at some point—hired counsel to investigate the difficulties surrounding the device’s removal.
Bennett ultimately filed a lawsuit against C.R. Bard, the product manufacturer, in March 2023 (two years after his third unsuccessful retrieval attempt). The claims included negligence, design defect, failure to warn, breach of express warranty, and fraudulent concealment.
Bard argued that Bennett filed his suit in an untimely manner, as nearly eight years had elapsed before he initiated legal action. In particular, the manufacturer argued that the 2015 television advertisement put Bennett on inquiry notice, and this is when the statute of limitations clock started to run. Bennett, on the other hand, argued that the statute of limitations did not commence to run until July 2023, when an imaging procedure confirmed that the device had fractured.
The district court agreed with Bard. In addition to the TV commercial, the plaintiff hired attorneys to investigate the cause of his complications. The court also noted that, by 2020 at the latest, Bennett’s medical records reflected signs of IVC stenosis, as well as treatment for varicose veins. The plaintiff and his doctors, the district court found, knew or should have known that the filter caused issues prior to 2023.
The Ninth Circuit’s Reversal
The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal reversed this decision. The panel found that the district court erred in concluding that Bennett was on inquiry notice of a design defect in the IVC filter simply because he had seen a television commercial warning of potential complications.
A reasonable jury, the court of appeal held, might find that the plaintiff believed his symptoms were from complications unrelated to the filter’s defect.
In particular, “Bennett’s medical records indicate no suspicion by his doctors prior to March 2021 that his filter ever caused the injuries that were the subject of the 2015 TV program: fracture, migration, tilt, or perforation.” Although he sought legal advice in this timeframe, moreover, Bennett was informed by these attorneys that his records did not reveal any evidence of malfunction. Accordingly, the district court’s grant of summary judgment was reversed.
Conclusion
For attorneys in the medical device, toxic tort, and other personal injury space, the Ninth Circuit’s reversal serves as a model for the principle that the statute of limitations should not be triggered unless and until the plaintiff has some reason to suspect that the defendant in question was actually the cause of their injury or harm: “…A plaintiff, through reasonably diligent investigation, discovers only that he has been injured but not that the injury may have a wrongful cause, then the clock has not yet begun to run.”
For courts, the panel’s ruling reinforces the well-settled dictates that all facts, evidence, and reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party must be considered on summary judgment before a case is dismissed.
1 Bennett v. C.R. Bard, No.24-2471, 2025 WL 1132825 (9th Cir. April 17, 2025).
