Bloomberg reports that Johnson & Johnson (JNJ -1.9%) has agreed to pay ~$1B to settle most lawsuits accusing it of selling defective metal-on-metal hips that eventually failed and had to be removed.
The deal resolves more than 95% of the 6,000 cases in which surgeons extracted the Pinnacle devices due to patient pain and difficulty walking. It pulled the product off the market in 2013 after the FDA toughened regulations.
The company still faces ~4,500 lawsuits from patients who received artificial hips not made entirely of metal or have not been surgically removed.
