Stryker Corporation has faced multiple waves of lawsuits over the past two decades, most involving hip implants that corroded inside patients and required revision surgery. The company has paid an estimated $2 billion to $2.2 billion to settle claims over its Rejuvenate and ABG II hip stems, reached a separate confidential settlement over LFIT V40 femoral heads, and is still defending active litigation over its Tritanium acetabular shell and a March 2026 cyberattack that exposed employee data. Whether you can still file a Stryker lawsuit depends on which device or event you are asking about.
Rejuvenate and ABG II Hip Stem Settlements
The largest Stryker litigation involved the Rejuvenate Modular-Neck and ABG II Modular-Neck hip stems, recalled in July 2012. The two-piece design connected a titanium alloy stem to a cobalt-chromium neck, and the junction between those dissimilar metals fretted and corroded, releasing metal particles into patients. A 1992 study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery had already flagged that metal combination in modular stems as “dangerous and should be avoided.”
Affected patients reported severe pain, swelling, tissue death around the hip, pseudotumors, and elevated cobalt and chromium blood levels, a condition known as metallosis. The metal debris was also linked to bone loss, kidney, heart, liver, and thyroid dysfunction, and neuropsychiatric symptoms including depression and cognitive decline. Revision surgery was often the only fix, and it was described in court filings as “incredibly invasive” because surgeons sometimes had to cut away portions of the femur where the metal stem had bonded to bone.
More than 3,700 lawsuits followed within two years. Federal cases were consolidated in June 2013 into MDL No. 2441 before Senior Judge Donovan W. Frank in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, with a parallel multicounty proceeding of roughly 2,600 cases in Bergen County Superior Court in New Jersey.
On November 3, 2014, Stryker announced a settlement program and recorded initial charges of $1.43 billion to fund it. Eligible plaintiffs who had undergone revision surgery received gross base awards of $300,000 per failed implant, adjusted up or down for individual factors such as complications and expected future surgeries, with individual payouts reaching up to $600,000. Enrollment closed March 2, 2015, and Stryker required a 95 percent opt-in rate before paying out. Epiq processed claims, Archer Systems administered the qualified settlement fund, and Special Master Edgar C. Gentle III oversaw the program. Patients did not need an attorney to participate.
In December 2016, the program was expanded to include patients whose revision surgeries occurred before December 19, 2016. By 2017, Stryker estimated total settlement costs at $2 billion to $2.2 billion, not counting $232 million in insurance recoveries. The MDL is technically still open with nine of the original 3,638 cases pending as of mid-2026, but discovery has been stayed since 2020. The settlement program is the practical resolution route for these devices.
LFIT V40 Femoral Head Litigation
A second wave of hip cases followed the August 2016 recall of more than 42,000 LFIT Anatomic CoCr V40 femoral heads manufactured before 2011. The cobalt-chromium ball components sat atop hip stems, and Stryker cited “higher than expected complaints of taper lock failure.” The connection between the femoral head and the stem corroded, causing components to loosen or, in the worst cases, snap apart, which court filings called “catastrophic failure.” Patients again suffered metallosis, tissue damage, pseudotumors, and revision surgery.
Over 1,200 lawsuits were consolidated into MDL No. 2768 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts under Judge Indira Talwani, with additional cases in New Jersey state court. In November 2018, Stryker announced a confidential settlement. Terms were not publicly disclosed, though one source reported Stryker paid $75 million across the MDL and individual lawsuits to resolve about 2,500 claims for roughly 500 plaintiffs. Many claimants were dissatisfied and chose not to participate. As of mid-2026, 53 cases remain pending in the MDL, and cases were still being transferred in from state courts as recently as July 2024.
Tritanium Acetabular Shell Cases Still Being Filed
Since 2019, lawsuits have targeted Stryker’s Tritanium Acetabular Shells, the cup-shaped components meant to fuse with the pelvic bone during hip replacement. Plaintiffs allege the shells fail to integrate properly, loosen shortly after surgery, and release toxic metal ions, causing pain, tissue damage, and the need for further surgery.
No settlement has been reached. Stryker has reportedly been in discussions to resolve the Tritanium litigation, and attorneys are still accepting new cases from patients who experienced complications within the past five years. If your claim relates to a Tritanium shell, this is the one active hip line where filing is still open.
2026 Cyberattack Employee Data Lawsuits
Shortly after midnight on March 11, 2026, an Iran-linked hacktivist group called Handala attacked Stryker’s global network. The attackers compromised a Windows domain administrator account, created a new Global Administrator account, and used Microsoft Intune’s built-in wipe command to remotely erase devices. The operation was a “wiper” rather than traditional ransomware, with no ransom demand and no evidence that data was actually stolen, despite Handala’s claim of exfiltrating 50 terabytes. The group described the attack as retaliation tied to the Middle East conflict.
The disruption was significant. CEO Kevin Lobo reported roughly 40,000 laptops were wiped, and Stryker’s ordering, shipping, and manufacturing systems were down for weeks, with operations not fully restored until early April 2026. Stryker disclosed the incident on Form 8-K on March 11, 2026, and an amended 8-K/A on April 9, 2026, acknowledged a “material impact on its operations.”
At least six employee lawsuits have followed. One proposed class action, Mesmer v. Stryker Corporation, Case No. 1:26-cv-00832, was filed March 13, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan. The complaint seeks to represent all individuals whose personal information Stryker maintained and that was compromised in the breach. It alleges negligence for inadequate data security, lack of multi-factor authentication, failure to encrypt sensitive information, and insufficient security training, plus breach of implied contract on the theory that employees entrusted the company with their data as a condition of employment. Plaintiffs seek actual and statutory damages, injunctive relief, and disgorgement of profits. Stryker does not carry cyber insurance.
Older Cases That Are Closed
Two other Stryker matters come up in searches but are fully resolved and not open to new claimants.
The OtisMed criminal case involved a company Stryker acquired in 2009. OtisMed’s former CEO Charlie Chi had continued shipping the OtisKnee cutting guide to surgeons after the FDA rejected the device’s marketing application in October 2008, with about 18,000 devices sold between 2006 and 2009 without approval. In December 2014, OtisMed and Chi pleaded guilty to federal charges. OtisMed paid $34.4 million in criminal fines plus $5.16 million in forfeiture, and about $41.2 million in civil False Claims Act liability. A former Stryker sales executive, Richard Adrian, received about $7 million as the whistleblower. OtisMed was barred from federal healthcare programs for 20 years. Chi was sentenced on June 26, 2015, in the District of New Jersey to 24 months in prison, one year of supervised release, and a $75,000 fine.
The Physiotherapy Associates matter closed in November 2007, when Stryker and its former outpatient therapy division paid $16.6 million to resolve allegations that Physiotherapy billed group therapy as one-on-one care, kept excess or duplicate payments, and billed for non-covered services under Medicare, state Medicaid programs, and TRICARE. Two former employees, Kerry Deering and Wendy Whitcomb, filed the whistleblower suits and shared nearly $3 million of the recovery.
If You Think You Have a Claim
The device involved determines your options. Rejuvenate and ABG II claims run through the settlement program, whose original and expanded enrollment windows have closed. LFIT V40 cases were resolved by the 2018 confidential settlement, though a small number remain pending in the MDL. Tritanium shell claims are still being accepted by plaintiffs’ attorneys, and no settlement is in place. Employees whose data was on Stryker’s network during the March 2026 breach may fall within the proposed class in Mesmer or the other pending suits.
Broader FDA action has since narrowed the market for the type of design at the center of Stryker’s hip litigation: in February 2016 the agency required manufacturers to stop selling certain metal-on-metal hip devices without special approval, and as of 2026 no metal-on-metal total hip replacement devices are FDA-approved in the United States.