Pennsylvania Spinal Cord Stimulator Lawsuit: What Patients Should Know

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Spinal Cord Stimulator — Device Litigation

The Spinal Cord Stimulator Litigation, Explained

Federal cases are consolidated in MDL 3181, most cases are in their earliest stages, and no settlement exists. Here is what is publicly known.

ACTIVE LITIGATION — NO SETTLEMENT. MDL 3181 underway · deadlines vary by state.

Marin & Murphy is not licensed in Pennsylvania; details below.

Partners

Stefanie A. Murphy & Matthew T. Marin

Super Lawyers® honorees · members of the American Association for Justice · concentrating in personal injury and mass-tort litigation.

No settlement has been reached in the spinal cord stimulator litigation, and most cases are in their earliest stages. Every case must be proven on its own facts. Whether any individual has a claim depends on their medical records and the law of their state. The information below covers the litigation itself.

Yes — Pennsylvania patients injured by a defective spinal cord stimulator can file a product liability lawsuit in Pennsylvania state or federal court. Pennsylvania allows two years under 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524, and Pennsylvania’s discovery rule makes the start date a fact question about when the cause was knowable.

Latest update: August 5, 2026 — The court held the initial status conference in MDL 3181; the FDA posted a Class I recall of Boston Scientific Infinion CX stimulator leads.

It sounds like you’ve been told this is normal

Maybe the trial worked and the permanent one never did. Maybe you’ve been through a dozen reprogrammings. Maybe you finally just turned it off and left it where it is.

You’re probably thinking this was your own fault for agreeing to it. You may be worried that asking questions could cost you your pain doctor. And you may not be someone who sues anybody, ever.

None of that has to change for you to find out what happened. The FDA has logged more than 372,000 adverse event reports on spinal cord stimulators, including more than 1,800 deaths. In Pennsylvania, Medicare alone paid for 1,079 people to have a stimulator generator implanted in 2024 — and 306 people to have their leads surgically removed or revised in the same year. You didn’t miss something that everyone else caught. Most people were introduced to this device the same way you were.

The question isn’t whether you’re the kind of person who files a lawsuit. It’s what happened to you, and whether anyone has ever told you the truth about it.

→ What the Medicare record shows about spinal cord stimulators in Pennsylvania

If it just stopped working, is that enough?

This is the question that stops most people, and the honest answer has changed.

For years the standard answer was no — that a device which simply stopped relieving pain, with no revision surgery and no hardware failure, was not the basis for a claim. Search for it today and that is still roughly what you will be told.

What has changed is that the filed cases are increasingly not about how the device performed. They are about how it was sold: what patients were told it would do, who told them, and what those people were paid. On that theory the events that matter happened before the device was ever implanted — which means a stimulator that never worked well is not a weaker set of facts. It is a different set of facts.

That is why attorneys reviewing these cases are looking at people whose devices simply stopped helping, and not only at people who have had revision surgery.

How these devices were sold

The filed complaints describe a sales process with recurring features, and it is worth knowing what they allege.

A pain physician raises the stimulator — often as a suggestion to learn more, sometimes by speaking with a representative from the device company.

Some filed complaints allege that a representative of the device manufacturer took part in those conversations. That is an allegation, not an established fact. What patients say they were told — about the device’s benefits and about the trial period — is among the questions the litigation raises.

Many patients also describe a trial period that went well, followed by a permanent implant that did not perform the same way. Whether and why that happened is another question the filed cases raise.

Why so many people were offered one after 2013

In September 2013 the FDA required class-wide safety labeling changes for extended-release and long-acting opioids. In 2016 the CDC issued prescribing guidelines that accelerated tapering nationwide. Many chronic pain patients were moved off medication they had taken for years, and spinal cord stimulation was among the alternatives offered.

In a 2018 investigation by the Associated Press and NBC, more than half of the injured patients interviewed said they felt pressured to get a stimulator because they feared their doctors would cut off their pain medication.

If that is how you ended up with one, your experience was a common one.

The Pennsylvania record

Medicare publishes what it pays for, procedure by procedure, state by state. Here is what that record shows for spinal cord stimulators in Pennsylvania.

In 2024, Medicare paid for 1,079 people in Pennsylvania to receive a stimulator pulse generator, and 306 people to have stimulator leads surgically removed or revised.

That is 306 lead removals or revisions against 1,079 implants — a ratio of 28 per 100. Nationally the figure is 31 per 100. Pennsylvania removes and revises these devices at a lower rate than the country as a whole.

The other thing the record shows is when this happened. In 2013, Medicare paid for 581 generator implants in Pennsylvania. By 2019 that number had reached 1,145 — up 97% in six years. The national figure followed the same curve, from 15,275 to 30,432.

Those are the same six years in which chronic pain patients across the country were being tapered off opioid medication.

These figures count Medicare patients only — roughly a third of everyone who receives one of these devices — so they are a floor, not a total. Removals in a given year are of devices implanted in earlier years, so this is a running rate, not a failure rate for any one year’s implants. Medicare does not publish counts below 11 patients; cells marked —* fall below that threshold. Implant volumes and opioid prescribing are shown together because they happened together; that is not by itself proof that one caused the other.

Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners — by Geography and Service, 2013–2024. CPT 63685 (generator insertion/replacement), 63661 and 63662 (lead removal), 63663 and 63664 (lead revision/replacement). Retrieved August 15, 2026.

How these figures were computed — sources, methods, and limitations

Which stimulator do I have?

Most patients don’t know, and that is normal — the surgeon chose it. Four companies make nearly all of them: Boston Scientific, Abbott (formerly St. Jude Medical), Medtronic, and Nevro, which Globus Medical acquired in April 2025.

Four places to look:

• The patient identification card you were given after implantation. It lists the manufacturer and model.
• The charger or the remote. The brand is printed on it.
• The phone app, if you were set up with one.
• Your operative report. Your surgeon’s office is required to provide your records on request. The implant is listed by manufacturer, model, and serial number.

If none of those are available, the manufacturer is recorded in the implant log of the hospital or surgery center where the procedure was done.

Why timing matters in Pennsylvania

In July 2026, a federal court dismissed three of four spinal cord stimulator plaintiffs for filing too late — an illustration of why filing deadlines matter in this litigation.

Pennsylvania gives injury plaintiffs two years under 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524(2), and its common-law discovery rule delays the start until the injury and its cause were reasonably knowable — Pennsylvania treats that as a fact question, often for a jury. Pennsylvania has no product-liability statute of repose; its repose statute reaches construction of real property. Wrongful-death claims carry the same two-year period, brought by the personal representative for the spouse, children, and parents. Under Pretrial Order No. 4, a case filed directly into MDL 3181 stops its limitations clock on the filing date. Where a specific Pennsylvania claim sits inside the two years is exactly what the review establishes.

Where the litigation stands

On June 5, 2026, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the federal Boston Scientific spinal cord stimulator cases into MDL 3181 in the Central District of California (Dkt. 2:26-ml-03181). The Panel centralized the Abbott cases as MDL 3194 and the Nevro cases as MDL 3195 on October 2, 2026. The FDA has received more than 372,000 adverse event reports for these devices, including over 11,000 describing electric shocks (reports are not verified causation). These claims target the manufacturers — not your doctor, and not your pain clinic.

A Pennsylvania case would typically be filed in the Eastern, Middle, or Western District of Pennsylvania (or Pennsylvania state court), and qualifying federal cases may be transferred to the MDL for coordinated proceedings. In Pennsylvania, Medicare alone paid for 1079 permanent stimulator implants and 1175 trials in 2024 — and Medicare is only part of the picture. (CMS Medicare fee-for-service data, CY2024; a floor, not total volume.)

Where Pennsylvania Stands in MDL 3181

We reviewed the publicly available member-case record and found no filing we could verify as brought by a Pennsylvania resident — a fact this page states rather than papers over. It is the normal condition of a young MDL: the consolidation dates to June 2026, new cases arrive monthly, and states join as they file, not in alphabetical order. Nothing about an empty Pennsylvania column changes the law above or the path in: under Pretrial Order No. 4, direct filing into MDL 3181 is open to a Pennsylvania claim and freezes its limitations clock the day it is filed. The MDL 3181 tracker logs the docket as it grows.

Who is included in the filed cases?

What information matters in these cases

1. Find your device ID card — it names the manufacturer and model; the charger, patient app, or operative report also identifies it.
2. Note your dates — implant, any revision or removal, and when you first believed the device was the problem.
3. Don’t wait on records — medical records can be gathered after an initial evaluation and their absence does not prevent one.
4. Speak with a licensed attorney — an attorney licensed in Pennsylvania can evaluate whether a claim is timely.

If you’re reading this for someone else

A lot of people reach this page on behalf of a parent or a spouse — usually the person who drove them to the appointments and watched what happened afterward.

You may be carrying some guilt about having encouraged the surgery. What you are describing — a device presented as the last option that works, sold by someone whose job was to sell it — is the ordinary story here, not the exception.

You are also usually the only person who can answer the questions that end up mattering most: what they could do before, what they can do now, how far they can walk, how many days they do not get out of bed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Some matters may be referred to other lawyers.

Attorney Advertising. Marin & Murphy Law Firm is licensed only in Rhode Island, South Carolina, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and is not licensed to practice law in Pennsylvania. This page is provided for general informational purposes only. It is not legal advice, does not create an attorney-client relationship, and does not constitute an offer to represent any Pennsylvania resident. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.