Members of the DePuy Hip Recall may be looking at some good news. Johnson & Johnson has reported that due to the DePuy Hip Recall and other litigation, along with certain acquisition difficulties, their earnings have dropped a staggering 89% for the fourth quarter of the fiscal year.

Their fourth quarter earnings only come to $218 million after assorted legal and other costs, dropping their stock to 8 cents per share. This comes after the company posted a $2.9 billion set of after-tax charges for a number of expenses — legal settlements, liability expenses for their products, and the costs of the planned acquisition of fellow pharma company Synthes.

To put the damage in perspective, at this time last year, the company was selling at 70 cents per share.

The DePuy Hip Recall was specifically named in the report as a particularly expensive and noteworthy litigation for the company.

If consumers harmed by pharmaceutical companies like DePuy and its parent Johnson & Johnson want their voices to be heard, litigation is often the only recourse. Seeing that their litigation has been a part of the company’s latest round of troubles should give the members of the DePuy Hip Replacement lawsuit a great deal of hope for the future of their efforts. Companies that are in tight straights tend to be more inclined to settle than those in better fiscal shape, so clearly this is the time to continue pressing claims against the irresponsibility of DePuy.

Just as a reminder, the ASR Hip Replacement device was rushed into production with very little testing because it was supposedly “very like” products already on the market. The early failure rate of these metal-on-metal devices began to cause problems in a large number of patients, including causing pain, severe tissue damage and tissue death, and heavy metal toxicity.

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