Federal Judiciary

Judgment Entered in Medtronic v. Boston Scientific

By Michael C. Smith

On January 23, 2009, Judge T. John Ward entered a final judgment in this case.  It's been a long road for the case since trial, when the plaintiff obtained a jury verdict for $250 million.  Since then the verdict has been trimmed and trimmed again and the final judgment now consists of $19,090,000 in damages, with another $4,558,124 in prejudgment interest, for a total of $23,648,124.  The court determined to sever any claims for future royalties and there was no request for injunctive relief, so this is a final judgment.
The prejudgment interest issue was actually the subject of a separate order, in which Judge Ward rejected BSC's claim that prejudgment interest should be denied because Medtronic delayed filing suit for five years.  Judge Ward found that there was no evidence that Medtronic's delay was a litigation tactic, and noted that the Court had ruled against BSC on its laches defense.  He similarly rejected BSC's request that the interest be calculated using a quarterly payment method.

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on January 27, 2009 (boomark / email).