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Posted:
Friday, August 18, 2000 | 6:18
a.m
Jury rules in favor of woman who
sued over breast implant
A St. Louis Circuit
Court jury awarded $4.5 million Thursday to a woman who blamed
medical problems on a silicone-gel-filled breast implant found
ruptured when a doctor removed it.
Jurors ordered the implant's manufacturer, Medical Engineering
Corp., to pay Yvonne Haltom
$2.25 million each in actual and punitive damages in the product
liability case.
Her lawyer, Jeff Lowe, said Haltom,
57, of St. Louis, first got breast implants in 1982 because of a
mastectomy of her right breast. In 1993 she had inflammation in
her left breast, which a doctor blamed on silicone that leaked
from the implant. Lowe said Haltom
later had reconstructive surgery using abdominal tissue.
Defense lawyers blamed surgical complications on Haltom's smoker's
cough, which they said strained the abdominal area where tissue
was removed.
Medical Engineering, which produced implants under the name
Surgitek, is a subsidiary of Bristol-Meyers Squibb Co. |
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