The first bellwether trial in In re Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation (MDL 3081) ended in May 2026 with a result that neither side can fully claim as a victory — and that ambiguity is precisely what makes the outcome so significant for the more than 3,500 plaintiffs still waiting in line. A split verdict in Cook v. Becton Dickinson gave Bard a partial win on failure-to-warn claims while leaving the critical design-defect question unresolved through a hung jury. The first bellwether ended in a split verdict now facing a new-trial motion, with the next trial set for August 18, 2026. With court-ordered settlement discussions on the horizon and a new trial motion still pending, the Bard PowerPort lawsuit has entered its most consequential phase yet.
What the Cook v. Becton Dickinson Verdict Actually Means
The first Cook bellwether trial began on April 21, 2026, when plaintiff Robert Cook alleged that a Bard PowerPort implanted port catheter caused him a serious infection. Opening statements were delivered April 21, 2026, with plaintiff’s counsel telling jurors that Bard knew for decades its devices were dangerously prone to infection yet shelved safer technologies — including antimicrobial coatings and non-fouling surfaces developed as early as 2005. Plaintiff Robert Cook, a Minnesota colorectal-cancer patient, was hospitalized six days and had chemotherapy delayed two weeks after his PowerPort became infected. After weeks of testimony, the jury returned a verdict that legal analysts are calling a “split decision with a loaded footnote.” The jury found that Bard and Becton Dickinson were not liable on the failure-to-warn and failure-to-instruct claims. The jury also rejected the consumer fraud claim. So on those claims, the defense won. Those were meaningful wins for the defense — failure-to-warn is often the backbone of pharmaceutical and medical device litigation.
However, the jury hung entirely on the most consequential question: whether the PowerPort was defectively designed. A key internal Bard document admitted at trial was an internal presentation covering infection rates and the feasibility of antimicrobial coatings, which Judge Campbell ruled would be admitted into evidence with partial redactions, over Bard’s Rule 403 objection. Perhaps more telling than the hung verdict itself is what jurors reportedly communicated afterward — that they would have answered yes if asked whether the PowerPort could have been made safer. That is not a defense win on design defect. That is a design-defect claim that survived its first courtroom encounter and lives to fight another day. For anyone using a medical malpractice calculator to estimate potential damages in a defective device case, the distinction between a verdict and a hung jury matters enormously — a hung jury resets the clock rather than closing the door.
Robert Cook, the plaintiff in the first PowerPort bellwether trial, subsequently filed a motion for a mistrial. The motion argues: “After a three-week trial on four complex claims and two affirmative defenses, the jury deliberated for only eleven hours before the Court permitted a partial verdict, leading the jury to promptly abandon its efforts to reach unanimity on all claims.” Becton Dickinson has stated that it found no new safety risks associated with the PowerPort and that it had clearly communicated the device’s risks and benefits to medical professionals. Bard filed its formal opposition to the Cook plaintiff’s motion for a new trial, arguing the jury instructions were proper and that the partial verdict should stand. A ruling from Judge Campbell remains pending.
What a Hung Jury on Design Defect Really Signals for 3,500+ Plaintiffs
To understand the litigation landscape, it helps to distinguish between the types of claims at issue in the Bard PowerPort lawsuit. Plaintiffs allege Bard PowerPort catheters are prone to cracking, fracturing, and material degradation, which can lead to catheter migration, blood clots, infections, pulmonary embolism, and other serious complications. The Cook case was an infection case, and infection cases are now widely regarded among mass tort observers as the harder category for plaintiffs to win, based on the first trial’s outcome.
Infection cases are harder and more fact-specific than clean fracture or migration cases. Bard will likely argue alternative causes of infection, patient-specific risk factors, medical care issues, and a lack of evidence that the port defect caused the infection. So to win, plaintiffs need to tie the infection back to the alleged device defect. Upcoming bellwether trials are expected to focus on catheter fracture and thrombosis injuries — claims that many legal analysts consider factually stronger for the plaintiff side. Further bellwether trials are scheduled to begin on Oct. 13 and Dec. 1, 2026, and Feb. 2, 2027, working through the remaining representative injury types. The Cook result, while not a plaintiff victory, has not closed the door on these claims — it has simply clarified which theories will be hardest to prove at trial.
Judge Campbell issued a case management order reducing the number of planned Bard PowerPort bellwether trials from six to five, finding that the remaining cases will still provide a meaningful test of the claims and defenses in the litigation. The judge noted that fracture claims currently make up only about 12% of the Bard PowerPort MDL inventory. Allowing two fracture cases to proceed among six bellwether trials would mean that one-third of the early test cases focused on an injury category that represents a much smaller share of the overall litigation.
The August 18 Bellwether Complication and the New Trial Motion
The second Bard PowerPort bellwether trial is now scheduled to begin in August after the plaintiff in a claim originally planned for trial next month died, and her family stopped pursuing litigation. Judge Campbell originally selected six Bard PowerPort cases for trial, including claims brought by Wanda Miller. However, Miller died in February due to cancer, and her family has decided not to continue pursuing the case. The second Bard PowerPort lawsuit bellwether trial is scheduled to begin on August 18, involving claims by Kimberly Divelbliss.
The PowerPort bellwether trial scheduled to begin next month has survived summary judgment — a big win, clearing the way for claims involving device fracture to go before a jury for the first time. This is the first bellwether centered specifically on fracture allegations, which plaintiffs’ attorneys consider a stronger causation theory than the infection claim already tried. Simultaneously, the plaintiff in the Cook bellwether case is asking the court for a new trial after the jury returned a defense verdict on the failure to warn claim and deadlocked on design defect. The motion argues that the jury was given flawed instructions that confused the legal standards and pushed jurors toward a partial verdict. The plaintiff also says the jury appeared to believe deliberations had to end by a deadline, which may have pressured the outcome.
If the court grants a new trial, Bard’s first defense win would be wiped out, and the case would be tried again, and the plaintiffs would get a huge psychological boost. That combination — a new trial motion still alive, a fracture case headed to an August jury, and additional trials on the calendar through early 2027 — means the litigation is now running on multiple parallel tracks simultaneously. The judge overseeing the MDL has deep experience with exactly this type of complex device litigation: judges decided to consolidate PowerPort lawsuits from across the country into MDL 3081 in Arizona before Judge David G. Campbell in August 2023. Judge Campbell also oversaw the former Bard IVC filter lawsuit MDL.
Settlement Valuation and What Plaintiffs Should Realistically Expect
No global PowerPort lawsuit settlement has been reached as of July 2026. Because the first bellwether trial ended in a partial defense verdict rather than a plaintiff verdict, no bellwether damages award currently exists to benchmark case values. Some plaintiffs’ attorneys have publicly suggested that a successful verdict in future trials could exceed seven figures in individual cases, but this reflects attorney speculation about potential outcomes, not a confirmed settlement figure or a guaranteed result for any claimant.
Based on industry research, lawyers representing plaintiffs in the Bard PowerPort litigation estimate that the individual payouts of a settlement could start at $10,000 and could reach nearly $1,000,000 on the higher end. These estimates are speculative and can vary, and no settlement amount is guaranteed. For example, infection-only cases could have a settlement range between $30,000 and $100,000, but catheter fracture cases where other organs are damaged may have a potential settlement range of $175,000 to $350,000.
The court overseeing the Bard PowerPort MDL has directed both parties to participate in settlement discussions scheduled for July 2026. Bellwether trials are intended to evaluate representative claims and provide insight into how juries may respond to the evidence and legal arguments presented. While the outcomes are not binding on other cases, they are expected to influence future settlement discussions and the overall direction of the litigation. The pattern in comparable device MDLs — Bard IVC filters among them — suggests that a global resolution, if it comes, is unlikely to materialize until at least two or three bellwether outcomes have given both sides enough data to negotiate from a position of informed risk. That timeline points toward late 2026 at the earliest, and more realistically into 2027.
What Comes Next: Key Milestones Through Late 2026 and Beyond
The Bard PowerPort MDL is now moving at a pace that will force meaningful decisions from both sides before the end of 2026. The next Bard PowerPort bellwether trial is scheduled for August 18, 2026. In anticipation of that trial, between June 1 and July 1, 2026, 472 plaintiffs joined the MDL. Currently, there are 3,848 active claims in the MDL for those claiming injuries from Bard’s port catheter devices.
The milestones to watch are layered. First, Judge Campbell must rule on plaintiff Cook’s pending new-trial motion — a decision that will either validate or undermine Bard’s narrative that it won round one. Additional trials are scheduled to begin on October 13, December 1, and February 2, 2027. If the bellwether trials do not result in a global resolution, additional cases may eventually be remanded to their original courts for individual trials. Second, the August 18 fracture trial involving Kimberly Divelbliss will be the first time a jury hears a catheter fracture claim — the theory that most practitioners regard as the litigation’s strongest, and the claim type that could easily reach into the seven-figure range if juries find the company ignored known design flaws or failed to warn physicians about critical safety risks.
Third, court-ordered settlement discussions are underway, and a strong plaintiff result in either the fracture trial or the new trial on Cook’s design-defect claim could accelerate those negotiations substantially. Between June 1 and July 1, 2026, 472 plaintiffs joined the MDL — a filing rate that signals the plaintiffs’ bar has not been deterred by the first defense verdict and is positioning for a long litigation arc if needed. Anyone who suffered a catheter fracture, migration, thrombosis, or infection related to a Bard PowerPort device and has not yet consulted an attorney should do so promptly, as statutes of limitations continue to run regardless of MDL progress.
Frequently Asked Questions About the Bard PowerPort Lawsuit
What did the first Bard PowerPort bellwether trial verdict actually decide?
Trial 1 (Cook v. Becton Dickinson, Infection Case) produced a split verdict — Bard was cleared on failure-to-warn, failure-to-instruct, and consumer fraud; the jury deadlocked on design defect. The plaintiff has moved for a new trial; Bard opposes; a ruling is pending. Bellwether verdicts are not binding on other plaintiffs in the MDL, but they carry significant weight in shaping how both sides value the remaining cases and whether the litigation moves toward global settlement talks.
How many cases are currently pending in the Bard PowerPort MDL?
As of August 2026, the Bard PowerPort MDL has grown to more than 3,500 pending cases. As the PowerPort bellwether trial process gets underway, new cases continue to be filed. Court filings show that about 190 new PowerPort lawsuits have been filed in federal court over the last few weeks. More new cases are expected to join ahead of the start of the next trial in August. The rapid growth reflects continued public awareness of the device’s alleged defects and an active plaintiffs’ bar that expects further bellwether results to shift negotiating leverage.
What is the expected Bard PowerPort settlement amount?
No Bard PowerPort settlement amounts have been established. Unlike litigations with a completed bellwether program, this MDL has not yet produced a plaintiff verdict to anchor value estimates. Based on industry research, lawyers representing plaintiffs in the Bard PowerPort litigation estimate that the individual payouts of a settlement could start at $10,000 and could reach nearly $1,000,000 on the higher end. Generally, the more serious the injury and the higher the financial damages, the larger the settlement will be. For example, infection-only cases could have a settlement range between $30,000 and $100,000, but catheter fracture cases where other organs are damaged may have a potential settlement range of $175,000 to $350,000. These figures are speculative until additional bellwether outcomes establish a realistic damages range.
What happens at the August 2026 second bellwether trial?
Final preparations are underway for the next PowerPort bellwether trial, which is scheduled to get underway on August 18. That trial will be the first to involve a fracture claim, helping both sides learn more about the strength of other lawsuits that involve fractures. A third trial is expected to begin in October. Bellwether outcomes do not bind the other cases, but they are closely watched because they shape how both sides value the remaining claims and whether the parties move toward a global resolution. A strong plaintiff result in this fracture trial — the first of its kind in this MDL — could be the inflection point that finally moves Becton Dickinson toward meaningful settlement negotiations.
Should I still file a Bard PowerPort lawsuit in 2026 if I was injured?
Yes. After filing a PowerPort lawsuit, your case will likely be consolidated into MDL 3081 in the District of Arizona. Bellwether cases have already been selected, so your lawyer will likely prepare your claim to negotiate for a settlement if Bard offers one. It’s important to note that settlements are never guaranteed. Results of the upcoming bellwether trials will affect potential settlements. The first defense verdict has not resolved the underlying design-defect theory, the new-trial motion remains alive, and the most compelling claims tend to involve patients who received a BardPort within the last ten years and then experienced serious complications. Statutes of limitations vary by state and can be as short as two years from the date of injury or discovery of harm — waiting for the litigation to resolve before filing is a strategy that risks leaving injured patients with no legal recourse at all.
Victoria Chambers is a mass tort and class action research analyst with extensive knowledge of multi-district litigation (MDL), defective product cases, dangerous drug lawsuits, and toxic exposure claims across the United States. Victoria is not an attorney and the information provided is for educational purposes only.