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Hip-check: Jury awards $8.3 million in implant suit against Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy unit

LOS ANGELES — A jury in Los Angeles has awarded more than $8 million to a man who accused Johnson & Johnson’s DePuy unit of knowingly marketing a faulty hip implant that was later recalled.

Jurors on Friday awarded the damages in 65-year-old Loren Kransky’s negligence and defective design suit against the giant health care company and its DePuy Orthopaedics subsidiary.

It’s the first of thousands of similar cases that attorneys say left people with crippling problems or in need of other replacement surgeries.

J&J attorneys argued Kransky had a host of pre-existing health ailments and the hip implant didn’t make him worse.

The all-metal ball-and-socket hip joint was sold for eight years to more than 90,000 people worldwide and pulled from the market two years ago.