A Greenfield IVC filter lawsuit is a product liability claim against Boston Scientific alleging that its permanent inferior vena cava filter is defectively designed and caused injuries such as perforation, migration, tilting, or occlusion. Unlike the mass litigations against C.R. Bard and Cook Medical, Greenfield claims have not been consolidated into a multidistrict litigation. Cases have been filed individually in federal and state courts, and only a handful have public outcomes: at least one confidential settlement, at least one defense win on summary judgment, and others still pending.1Drugwatch. IVC Filter Lawsuits
What Plaintiffs Allege
Complaints against Boston Scientific typically claim the Greenfield filter is prone to fracturing, migrating from its original position, perforating the vena cava or nearby organs, tilting inside the blood vessel, or becoming occluded by blood clots.1Drugwatch. IVC Filter Lawsuits Plaintiffs also allege that Boston Scientific knew or should have known about these risks and failed to warn patients and physicians adequately.
The legal theories usually pleaded together include:
- Design defect
- Failure to warn
- Strict product liability
- Negligence and, in some filings, gross negligence
- Breach of warranty
- State consumer protection claims, such as violations of the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act
A 2022 review of 95 IVC filter lawsuits published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology identified the Greenfield as one of the two most-litigated filters, appearing in 16 of the 84 cases where a specific model was named. The primary complications alleged in those Greenfield suits were IVC occlusion and IVC perforation.2Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. Inferior Vena Cava Filter Litigation Review
The 2005 Recall and What It Covered
In 2005, Boston Scientific recalled 18,000 stainless steel Greenfield Vena Cava Filters with 12-French femoral introducer systems that had been manufactured before March 10, 2004. The problem was in the delivery system: the carrier capsule could detach from the outer sheath during implantation. Boston Scientific had received eight complaints, including two involving serious injury and one death.3Fosters. Boston Scientific Recalls Vena Cava Filters The FDA recall record (Z-0300-06) describes the defect as a braided sheath that could lack a taper, potentially causing vessel damage, and lists the recall as initiated August 5, 2005, and terminated November 9, 2006.4FDA. Recall of 12 Fr Greenfield Vena Cava Filter
One point worth being clear about: the recall applied only to unimplanted units. It did not affect filters already inside patients, and it is not a recall of the Greenfield device itself.
Known Greenfield Filter Cases
Ratliff v. Boston Scientific (Settled)
In January 2015, the family of Cinthia K. Ratliff filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Boston Scientific in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Ratliff had a Greenfield filter implanted in April 2004 to treat deep vein thrombosis. She died on May 3, 2013, and an autopsy attributed her death to perforation of the inferior vena cava by the Greenfield filter, causing retroperitoneal hemorrhage.5AboutLawsuits.com. Greenfield IVC Filter Lawsuit The case, before Judge Michael H. Watson, was dismissed with prejudice in March 2017 after a confidential settlement. The settlement amount was not disclosed.6HarrisMartin. Boston Scientific Greenfield Vena Cava Filter Case Settles in Ohio
Fuss v. Boston Scientific (Defense Summary Judgment)
John Fuss sued Boston Scientific in the Superior Court of Middlesex, Massachusetts (Civil Action No. 2019-02348), alleging that a Greenfield filter implanted in 2007 perforated his IVC wall. He brought claims under Ohio law for failure to warn, design defect, misrepresentation, and violations of the Ohio Consumer Sales Practices Act.7Drug and Device Law Blog. Fuss v. Boston Scientific Corporation
The court excluded the opinions of Fuss’s expert, Dr. David Smoger, finding him unqualified to testify about engineering, design, testing, and warning labels, and his opinions unreliable under the Daubert-Lanigan standard. Without expert testimony, Fuss could not meet his burden of proof on design defect and failure to warn. The court also held that his injury was asymptomatic and had not altered his life, which did not qualify as a compensable injury under Ohio law. Boston Scientific was granted summary judgment on all claims in October 2022.
Two things are worth taking from Fuss. First, a qualified expert is essential in a Greenfield case; without one, the claim likely fails at summary judgment. Second, at least in Ohio, an asymptomatic finding on imaging may not be enough on its own to support a claim.
Milan v. Boston Scientific (Pending as Last Reported)
Katherine Milan, a Kentucky resident, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Kentucky in 2016 (Case No. 5:16-cv-65-TBR). She alleged that a Greenfield filter implanted on May 6, 2005, was found occluded with blood clots on August 10, 2015, requiring her to take blood thinners for life.8The Clark Firm Texas. Milan v. Boston Scientific Corporation Complaint Her complaint pleaded defective design, defective manufacture, failure to warn, breach of warranty, strict liability, negligence, and gross negligence, and sought compensatory and punitive damages in excess of $75,000. The case was still ongoing as of the most recent available information.1Drugwatch. IVC Filter Lawsuits
Why There Is No Greenfield MDL
The Greenfield litigation is small. Boston Scientific has no multidistrict litigation for these claims, and no large-scale or global settlement has been publicly announced.9Wisner Baum. IVC Filter Lawsuit Cases have proceeded individually. One source describes Greenfield activity as “centered in Ohio,” where the Ratliff case was filed and where Ohio law governed the Fuss claims.10Miller and Zois. IVC Filter Lawsuits
By contrast, the C.R. Bard MDL (No. 2641, District of Arizona) resolved through confidential settlements covering roughly 8,000 plaintiffs before it closed.9Wisner Baum. IVC Filter Lawsuit The Cook Medical MDL (No. 2570, Southern District of Indiana) remained active with approximately 6,562 pending cases as of May 2026.1Drugwatch. IVC Filter Lawsuits
Part of the reason for the gap is the device itself. The Greenfield is a permanent implant. The Bard and Cook filters that generated most of the litigation were retrievable designs, and medical research has found that device-related complications like perforation, migration, and fracture occur significantly more often with retrievable filters than with permanent ones.11Wisner Baum. Types of IVC Filters The engineering trade-offs that make a filter collapsible for later removal tend to reduce its long-term structural integrity compared to a permanent design.
How Likely Is a Plaintiff to Win?
Across IVC filter litigation as a whole, manufacturers have prevailed more often than plaintiffs. The 2022 JVIR study found that 63.2% of the 95 cases it analyzed were decided for the manufacturer or physician, while 20% went in favor of patients. Of the successful lawsuits, about 84% were product liability claims against manufacturers, and roughly a third of those wins produced settlements exceeding $500,000.2Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology. Inferior Vena Cava Filter Litigation Review
The picture is thinner for Greenfield specifically. No public jury verdicts have been reported in Greenfield cases. The only Greenfield case with a publicly known outcome beyond summary judgment is Ratliff, which settled confidentially in 2017. Fuss ended in a defense summary judgment. Milan was pending.
If You Are Considering a Claim
If you were implanted with a Greenfield filter and have been diagnosed with a complication, the pattern in the reported cases suggests a few practical points. The stronger claims have involved documented, symptomatic injury caused by the filter, ideally corroborated by imaging or, in the wrongful death context, autopsy findings. Expert testimony from a qualified engineer or medical specialist matters: the Fuss decision turned in part on the exclusion of the plaintiff’s expert. And the governing state’s product liability law shapes what counts as a compensable injury; Ohio law, which has featured in more than one Greenfield case, did not treat an asymptomatic perforation as sufficient in Fuss.
Because there is no MDL and no announced settlement program, any claim will proceed as an individual lawsuit against Boston Scientific. Statutes of limitations vary by state and typically run from when the injury was discovered or reasonably should have been, so timing matters.