Hartford Hospital Endoscope Infection Lawsuit

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Olympus Scope — Infection Claims

Hospitalized With an Infection After a Scope Procedure?

If you were told it was “just a complication,” Olympus’s federal guilty plea — and $85 million in penalties — tell a different story. In two minutes, you can know whether your case qualifies.

ACTIVE LITIGATION. 250+ patients · most recent filing: June 2026 · deadlines vary by state — some as short as one year.

Were you hospitalized with an infection within 30 days of an endoscopy or scope procedure?

Yes — See If My Case Qualifiesfree · takes 2 minutes
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Free · confidential · no fee unless there is a recovery · answering doesn’t commit you to anything. Court costs and litigation expenses are advanced by counsel and repaid from the recovery. You are not responsible for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before expenses are deducted.

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Stefanie A. Murphy & Matthew T. Marin

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You’ll get a straight answer even if it’s “you don’t qualify.” Everything you share is confidential — even if you never hire us. No fee unless there is a recovery; costs are advanced and reimbursed only out of a recovery. If you do qualify, our Olympus scope litigation team requests the medical and hospital records — you don’t chase them.

Qualification depends on what the medical records show — the scope involved, the infection, and the timing. We’ll review them and give you a straight answer either way.

Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut appears in the U.S. Senate HELP Committee’s duodenoscope investigation, which records 12 patients at the hospital in January 2014 in connection with an Olympus device. The device manufacturer — Olympus Corporation, not Hartford Hospital — is the subject of pending litigation. Connecticut has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. If you had a scope procedure at Hartford Hospital and developed an infection, the time to act is now.

Court costs and litigation expenses are advanced by counsel and repaid from the recovery. You are not responsible for court costs or litigation expenses if there is no recovery, unless a court directs otherwise. The attorney’s fee is a percentage of the gross recovery, calculated before expenses are deducted.

What Did the Senate Investigation Find About Hartford Hospital?

In January 2016, the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee published “Preventable Tragedies: Superbugs and How Ineffective Monitoring of Medical Device Safety Fails Patients.” The report’s duodenoscope incident table records Hartford Hospital with 12 patients in January 2014, in connection with an Olympus device. Two points matter for accuracy: the organism recorded in Olympus’s own adverse-event report was ESBL-producing E. coli rather than CRE, and the scopes were cultured twice with no organisms isolated. The report also states that Olympus followed up with the hospital and received no response — a gap in the manufacturer’s surveillance, not a finding against the hospital. The committee concluded that Olympus was aware of contamination problems years before issuing warnings and that FDA oversight of device safety was inadequate to protect patients.

(Source: Senate HELP Committee, January 13, 2016.) The Senate investigation estimated at least 250 patients worldwide contracted potentially deadly infections from contaminated duodenoscopes, across all three manufacturers — and stated this figure is likely a significant undercount. The report does not provide an outbreak narrative for Hartford of the kind it provides for some other named hospitals. The committee’s findings described a systemic failure by Olympus to disclose known device hazards to the medical community.

(Source: Senate HELP Committee, January 13, 2016.) The peer-reviewed record from other named hospitals confirms the national scope of the problem. At Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, 32 patients contracted multidrug-resistant E. coli; seven died within 31 days of positive culture; MDR E. coli was recovered from four of eight tested scopes despite no identified breach in the hospital’s disinfection protocol.

(Source: Ross et al., PMID 26092616.) At an Illinois teaching hospital, 39 patients contracted NDM-producing E. coli, with an odds ratio of 78 (95% CI, 6.0–1008) for duodenoscope exposure. (Source: Epstein et al., PMID 25291580.) At UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, 17 patients were infected with carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, two died, and approximately 179 were potentially exposed — again with no deviation from manufacturer reprocessing recommendations identified. (Source: Humphries et al., PMID 29579235.) A 2022 meta-analysis of 9,084 post-reprocessing cultures found 5% contamination even after enhanced cleaning protocols, with 0.8% high-risk organisms detected — confirming that the contamination problem persisted even when hospitals adopted more rigorous procedures than Olympus originally required. (Source: Bomman et al., PMC8831410.)

What Did Olympus Know Before the National Outbreaks Were Made Public?

By the time the Senate investigation published in January 2016, Olympus had already been notified of confirmed outbreak events at Virginia Mason (2012–2013), the Illinois teaching hospital (2013), and UCLA (2014–2015). Olympus was also aware of European hospital contamination events linked to the same duodenoscope design as early as 2012. Despite this documented record across multiple countries, Olympus issued no public recall and no general warning to American hospitals.

(Sources: Ross et al., PMID 26092616; Epstein et al., PMID 25291580; DOJ press release.) In December 2018, Olympus Medical Systems Corporation and former senior executive Hisao Yabe pleaded guilty to three counts of distributing misbranded medical devices before the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey (Case No. 2:18-cr-00727-SRC). Olympus paid $85 million in criminal penalties and admitted failing to file FDA-required adverse-event reports during the period when these outbreaks were occurring.

(Source: DOJ press release, December 10, 2018.) This was not a civil settlement — it was a federal guilty plea acknowledging that Olympus withheld information that could have prompted earlier warnings. In October 2025, Olympus issued an Urgent Field Safety Notice admitting that prior reprocessing protocols for current-generation TJF-series duodenoscopes — including the TJF-Q190V and TJF-Q290V — were insufficient, and that 10× magnification tools are now mandatory for scope inspection.

These tools had never previously been required. The notice also confirmed two deaths and five serious injuries linked to current-generation TJF-series scopes. (Source: Olympus Urgent Field Safety Notice, October 14–17, 2025.) This admission applies retroactively to every ERCP performed with Olympus duodenoscopes before October 2025, including every procedure performed at Hartford Hospital before that date.

Why Connecticut Patients Must Act Now

Connecticut has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. The deadline may run from the date of your procedure, the date you received the exposure letter, or the date you discovered the injury was connected to the scope — depending on how Connecticut’s discovery rule applies to your individual circumstances. Because the timing rules are fact-specific, consult an attorney promptly rather than waiting and potentially forfeiting your options.

If you received a letter from Hartford Hospital regarding a potential risk related to a scope procedure, preserve it — it documents the hospital’s acknowledgment of a potential device-related patient safety event. Following Olympus’s October 2025 Urgent Field Safety Notice, facilities that had used the affected TJF-series duodenoscopes were required to identify and notify patients accordingly. The letter is the hospital’s documented acknowledgment — created under a federal regulatory obligation — that your procedure, the Olympus device, and the contamination risk are connected.

Preserve that letter. Hartford Hospital is not the defendant. The device manufacturer — Olympus Corporation — is the subject of pending litigation. Do not assume you have no options without first consulting an attorney. Even if you believe your filing deadline may have passed, contact us before concluding — the discovery rule may apply to your situation.

Do You Qualify? Confirming Your Potential Claim

This litigation has confirmed intake criteria. Review the checklist below. If your situation matches, contact us immediately — Connecticut’s two-year deadline means every day matters.

Notice of exposure? If you received a notice of exposure after an Olympus scope procedure, you may qualify even without a confirmed infection diagnosis — contact us to review your situation.

What Should Hartford Hospital Patients Do Now?

If you are a Connecticut patient, you have two years to act. Complete these five steps — starting today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Hartford Hospital named in the Senate investigation into Olympus scope infections?

Yes. The U.S. Senate HELP Committee named Hartford Hospital in its January 13, 2016 report as one of the U.S. hospitals where Olympus duodenoscopes were linked to carbapenem-resistant bacterial outbreaks affecting at least 250 patients worldwide, across all three duodenoscope manufacturers. The committee concluded that Olympus failed to report contamination information to regulators and that FDA oversight was inadequate to protect patients.

Hartford Hospital was one of the institutions named across multiple states in the national investigation.

How many patients were infected at Hartford Hospital?

The Senate HELP Committee report named Hartford Hospital as one of the U.S. hospitals in its national investigation but did not publish facility-specific patient counts at the level of detail available for some other named hospitals. The national total confirmed by the Senate investigation was at least 250 patients — a figure the committee stated was likely a significant undercount. The absence of a separately confirmed count for Hartford does not diminish the seriousness of the Senate’s findings regarding that hospital.

What organism was recorded in the Hartford Hospital incident?

Olympus’s own adverse-event report for the January 2014 Hartford incident records ESBL-producing E. coli, not CRE. The same exhibit records that the scopes were cultured twice and no organisms were isolated. Carbapenem-resistant organisms — documented at other hospitals named in the same Senate report — are a different and more resistant class; that evidence does not come from Hartford.

How long do I have to file a lawsuit as a Connecticut patient?

Connecticut has a two-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims. The clock may run from the date of injury or from when the patient discovered — or should have discovered — the connection between their procedure and their infection. Do not self-disqualify based on the procedure date alone without consulting an attorney. Contact an attorney promptly to determine whether your claim is still viable and how the discovery rule applies to your situation.

I had an ERCP at Hartford Hospital — what should I do?

Preserve any letter the hospital sent you and request your full medical records, including the procedure record identifying the specific Olympus scope model and serial number used. Hospital risk management represents the hospital’s interests — not yours. Patients should be aware that statements made to the hospital or its representatives before consulting an attorney may affect their legal options. Connecticut’s two-year statute of limitations means time matters — consult an attorney promptly so your rights are preserved while options remain open.

Is Hartford Hospital the defendant in this litigation?

No. Hartford Hospital is not the defendant. The device manufacturer — Olympus Corporation — is the subject of pending litigation for supplying duodenoscopes with inadequate cleaning instructions and failing to report contamination events to the FDA over a period of years. Hartford Hospital followed the reprocessing instructions Olympus provided. The legal claim runs against Olympus as the party responsible for the device design and the instructions that governed its use.

What is Olympus Corporation’s legal responsibility to Connecticut scope patients?

Olympus supplied the duodenoscopes used at Hartford Hospital, wrote the cleaning instructions hospitals followed, and had prior knowledge of outbreaks at multiple U.S. and European hospitals before the Senate investigation was published. In December 2018, Olympus pleaded guilty to three counts of distributing misbranded medical devices and paid $85 million in criminal penalties, admitting it failed to file FDA-required adverse-event reports.

(Source: DOJ press release; Case No. 2:18-cr-00727-SRC, D.N.J.) In October 2025, Olympus further admitted prior cleaning protocols for current-generation TJF-series scopes were insufficient. (Source: Olympus Urgent Field Safety Notice, October 14–17, 2025.)

Can I still file if my Hartford Hospital procedure was several years ago?

Connecticut’s two-year statute of limitations is the starting point, but the discovery rule may extend the deadline — the clock may run from when you knew or should have known about the connection between your procedure and your injury, not necessarily from the procedure date. Do not assume your claim has expired without consulting an attorney first. Even if you believe the deadline has passed, contact us before assuming you have no options — there may still be paths worth exploring depending on how a potential global resolution is structured.