According to a notice published on May 10,  a group of ten Ethicon Physiomesh lawsuits has been identified for a bellwether trial pool in the federal court system. It includes five cases selected by each side, to help gauge how juries might respond to certain evidence and testimony that will be repeated throughout the litigation. The first claims will be selected to go before a jury starting in February 2020.

J&J and its subsidiary Ethicon faces nearly 2,000 product liability lawsuits over hernia mesh complications involving abdominal pain, infection, hernia recurrence, adhesions, perforations, erosion and was removed from the market in May 2016. Following the bellwether trials, if the manufacturer fails to reach settlements or another resolution, all individual lawsuits might be remanded back to different U.S. District courts nationwide for separate trial dates in the future.

There are more than 240 Bard hernia mesh lawsuits pending in the multidistrict litigation (MDL No. 2846; In Re:  Davol, Inc./C.R. Bard, Inc., Polypropylene Hernia Mesh Products Liability Litigation) formed in the Southern District of Ohio.