A jury trial began October 14 on the Arizona port catheter litigation docket, during the court's scheduled window for May Lattanzio. Judge David G. Campbell had already set the evidence rules and December 1 start date for Judy Hicks's trial.
A Bard jury trial began October 14 in Arizona; Judge David G. Campbell said the next trial's exhibit lists should not exceed 750 per side. His Case Management Order No. 42 set May Lattanzio's trial window from October 13 through October 30, 2026. The multidistrict litigation docket records a trial underway, with “Jury Trial - Begun” on October 14 and “Jury Trial - Held” on October 15. AboutLawsuits reports that the preceding bellwether produced a $40 million jury award. The docket entries through October 15 show no verdict in this trial, and the exhibit lists for the next one are due October 20.
The docket entries do not identify the member case. The connection to Lattanzio comes from Campbell's schedule and AboutLawsuits' October 14 report, which calls hers the third bellwether and describes infection claims by a woman from Florida. That report describes a liability phase followed by a phase on whether punitive damages apply. The court docket records trial activity on October 14 and 15, but none of those entries shows what the jury heard or decided.
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Lattanzio's scheduled trial sits within a calendar Campbell fixed months ago. Case Management Order No. 42 lists Robert Cook for April, Wanda Miller for July, Kimberly Divelbliss for August, Lattanzio for October, Judy Hicks for December and Lloyd Sorensen for February 2027. Those are settings, not a record that every listed case reached trial.
The order also shows one scheduling maneuver by the plaintiffs. They asked to move Divelbliss from October to August 2026, and Campbell granted the request. The adjusted schedule gives Lattanzio the October window. Hicks follows on December 1. Rather than waiting for the current trial to finish before setting the next one, the court has both the jury calendar and Hicks's final pretrial work in motion.
AboutLawsuits reports that the first bellwether ended in a defense verdict that the plaintiff is appealing. AboutLawsuits also reports a $40 million award in the second, for a woman from New Mexico who said her PowerPort caused a pulmonary embolism. Those outcomes are as AboutLawsuits reports them. They give the current trial its financial backdrop without predicting its result.
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In the caption of the First Amended Case Management Order No. 50, Judy Hicks is the plaintiff; C R Bard Incorporated and others are the defendants. AboutLawsuits identifies Hicks as a plaintiff from Missouri and says her complaint describes an infection, a blood clot, surgery to remove the catheter and a later surgery to remove the rest of the implant. Campbell's order sets her jury trial to begin December 1.
Before that jury arrives, the parties must lodge a proposed final pretrial order on October 20. Campbell wrote that, based on experience in the Cook trial, the parties' exhibit lists “should not exceed 750 exhibits per side”. He also directed that the proposed order contain no lengthy written arguments. The 750 figure concerns proposed exhibit lists, not the number of exhibits admitted or shown to jurors.
The order separately requires parties to disclose and list evidence they intend to offer. Campbell's order says the court will exclude an exhibit, witness or other evidence unless it was disclosed under the order and federal rules and listed in the proposed final pretrial order, except to prevent manifest injustice. The parties had to mark and exchange trial exhibits in advance; the order says an exhibit omitted from that exchange will be precluded. The proposed final pretrial order, due to be lodged October 20, must contain the parties' intended trial evidence lists.
Campbell also limited each side to 10 motions asking to restrict evidence before trial, with three pages per motion and no replies. Responses are due October 20. The parties must jointly file proposed questions for prospective jurors and a proposed verdict form; if they cannot agree on the form, they must file separate proposals and be prepared to discuss them at the October 26 final pretrial conference in Phoenix. These steps set deadlines for proposing questions for prospective jurors and identifying evidence for the Hicks trial.
The court's schedule gives Lattanzio a trial window through October 30. It gives Hicks and Bard an October 20 deadline for the proposed final pretrial order and an October 26 conference at the Sandra Day O'Connor U.S. Courthouse. Sorensen is set to begin February 2, 2027. The listed dates do not establish that any later trial will proceed unchanged.
Analysis: an MDL jury trial began October 14, and the Hicks order requires the parties to lodge a proposed final pretrial order and file a proposed verdict form by October 20. The $40 million award reported by AboutLawsuits is part of that backdrop; the docket through October 15 shows no verdict in the current trial, and Hicks is not set to begin until December 1.
The current scoreboard is limited: one defense verdict and one $40 million award reported by AboutLawsuits, plus trial activity recorded October 14 and 15 on the MDL docket. Campbell's 750 exhibit direction now frames the next contest. On October 20, the Hicks proposed final pretrial order is due to be lodged with the court in the multidistrict litigation. The order requires the parties to list the evidence they intend to offer at the December trial.
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