DePuy executives are in a Los Angeles, Calif., courtroom battling a lawsuit that could launch literally thousands more civil cases against the orthopedic device maker.

The lawsuit – Sandra Ellis, Loren Kransky, et al. v. DePuy Inc., et al. – is the first against DePuy to go before a jury. It accuses the company, headquartered in Warsaw, of producing ASR artificial hips that left metal shards inside patients. It further accuses the company of failing to issue a timely recall despite being aware of problems.

The case is being featured on Courtroom View Network.

Michael Kelly, lawyer for the plaintiffs in the case, claims internal emails from 2005 prove the ASRs were a known problem by DePuy, but a recall was not issued until 2010.

If DePuy is found negligent, it could launch thousands more cases. DePuy launched the ASR hips in the U.S. in 2005. At that time, 37,000 of them were issued.