Bard Port Catheter Lawsuit — MDL 3081 Status
3,734 cases pending, up nearly 40 percent in six months, with bellwether trials running through 2026 and into 2027. No settlement has been reached.
No settlement has been reached and no claim portal exists. The litigation is in the bellwether-trial phase — the second trial was scheduled to begin August 18, 2026.
Your Case Details
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Higher-tier injuries qualify for higher settlement tiers.
Estimated Settlement Tier
$105,000 — $195,000
Mass tort settlements use injury-severity tiers. Most MDLs have published payment matrices — your tier depends on diagnosis + exposure proof.
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Reviewed by Leonard Goldberg, Editor · Last updated
What MDL 3081 Is, and Where It Actually Stands
Lawsuits over Bard's implanted port catheters — marketed as the PowerPort and used to deliver chemotherapy and other long-term infusions — are consolidated as In re: Bard Implanted Port Catheter Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 3081, in the District of Arizona before U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell. As of the Judicial Panel's August 3, 2026 census, 3,734 actions were pending out of 3,980 filed historically — an increase of 1,060 pending cases in six months, or plus 39.6 percent.
The core allegation is a material defect. The catheter body is made from Chronoflex AL containing barium sulfate, and plaintiffs' biomedical engineering experts argue the barium sulfate produces microfractures in the polymer, leaving it prone to cracking and to bacterial colonization. The injuries alleged follow from that: catheter fracture and migration, bloodstream infection, thrombosis, and interrupted cancer treatment.
The first bellwether trial, Cook v. Becton Dickinson, opened April 21, 2026 before Judge Campbell; the plaintiff, a Minnesota colorectal-cancer patient, alleged his PowerPort became infected, hospitalizing him for six days and delaying chemotherapy by two weeks. Further bellwether trials were scheduled for August 18, 2026, October 13, 2026, December 1, 2026 and February 2, 2027. No settlement exists, and no claim portal or deadline has been established.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has Bard settled the port catheter lawsuits?
No. As of August 2026 there is no settlement in MDL 3081 and no settlement fund. The litigation is working through bellwether trials — representative cases tried to verdict so both sides learn what juries do with the evidence before any global resolution is negotiated.
How much is a Bard PowerPort case worth?
There is no established settlement value, and any specific number you are quoted today is speculation. What drives value in device cases is the severity of what happened — a bloodstream infection requiring hospitalization, a fractured fragment requiring retrieval, or delayed cancer treatment are treated very differently from an uneventful device removal.
Which devices are involved?
The litigation centers on implanted port catheters manufactured by Bard, now part of Becton Dickinson, including the PowerPort line. Note that this is a different product and a different MDL from the Bard IVC filter litigation — if you had an IVC filter rather than an infusion port, that is a separate case.
What injuries are alleged?
The most commonly alleged are catheter fracture with fragment migration, bloodstream and local infection, blood clots and thrombosis, and the downstream harm of interrupted or delayed treatment when the port fails in a patient who depends on it for chemotherapy.
How do I know which port I had?
Implant records identify the device — the operative report, the device sticker in your chart, or the manufacturer card given at implantation. Your hospital's medical records department can provide these, and the implanting facility is usually the fastest route to the manufacturer and model.
My port was removed. Can I still bring a claim?
Yes, removal does not by itself end a claim, and the explanted device can be important evidence. If it was removed recently, ask the facility whether the device was retained — hospitals often discard explanted hardware unless someone asks them not to.
Is there a deadline?
There is no claim-portal deadline because there is no settlement to claim against. What does apply is your state's statute of limitations, which generally runs from the injury or from when you reasonably should have connected the injury to the device. Those periods vary by state and can be short.
What happens at a bellwether trial?
A small number of representative cases are tried to verdict while the rest of the MDL waits. The verdicts do not bind the other cases, but they show both sides how juries weigh the evidence, which is typically what makes serious settlement negotiations possible.