Berger Montague Wins $147 Million Antitrust Jury Verdict for Innovative Health

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May 22, 2025, 12:17 ET

PHILADELPHIA, May 22, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Berger Montague, a national plaintiffs' law firm, is pleased to announce that it and co-counsel—Jeffrey Berhold, P.C.; Kellogg, Hansen, Todd, Figel & Frederick, PLLC; and Theodora Oringher P.C.—have won a $147 million jury verdict stemming from anticompetitive conduct by Johnson & Johnson's medical technology unit Biosense Webster. The jury awarded Innovative Health damages after almost 6 years of a hard-fought legal battle. The antitrust damages will be trebled, and the court will also be asked to award fees and costs, likely bringing the total judgment to almost a half billion dollars.

"This is a terrific outcome for our client Innovative Health and an important step in the fight against rising health care costs," said Berger Montague Shareholder Joshua P. Davis, who leads the firm's Appeals & Complex Briefing practice. "This was a complex case where a district judge had initially granted summary judgment. Berger Montague led the appeal that overturned summary judgment in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals," said Mr. Davis. "I am incredibly proud of this legal team and the dogged determination of our client to obtain justice."

"This is just one more example of our firm's tenacity in fighting for justice for our clients," said firm Chair Eric L. Cramer. "We are one of the leading firms in the country handling all aspects of complicated antitrust cases, including trials and appeals."

The medical procedures at issue in the case treat the most common cardiac conditions, including various forms of irregular heart rates that can cause a stroke or a heart attack. Innovative offers dramatic savings to hospitals on the technology for these procedures, holding the potential to significantly decrease costs to hospitals and their patients.

Judge James V. Selna granted the defendant, Biosense, summary judgment three years ago, but co-counsel brought in Joshua Davis and the Berger Montague Appeals & Complex Briefing practice, who persuaded the Ninth Circuit to overturn that decision last year. In a 2-1 vote, the court ruled there was a viable factual dispute over whether Biosense illegally tied support services only to hospitals that purchased catheters directly from it, restricting support for catheters sold by third parties like Innovative.

Trial testimony kicked off last week and lasted eight days in the almost six-year-old case and the jury returned the unanimous verdict after about two hours of deliberation. Innovative filed against Biosense, challenging an April 2016 rollout of a policy that cut off clinical support to hospitals that did not use its new catheters after Innovative received FDA clearance to reprocess Biosense's sensor-enabled catheters during electrophysiology procedures to help treat irregular heartbeats.

The Berger Montague legal team also included David Langer, Kyla Gibboney, Matthew Summers, Julie Pollock, Sue Leo, and Connor Rowe. Read more about the Innovative Health, LLC v. Biosense Webster, Inc. case here.

Berger Montague is one of the nation's preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions, and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in the fields of antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities, and whistleblower cases, among many other practice areas. For more than 50 years, Berger Montague has played lead roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $50 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago, Malvern, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.