Abbott Spinal Cord Stimulator Lawsuit

The only Class I SCS recall

On July 18, 2023, Abbott issued a recall the FDA classified as Class I, its most serious category, reserved for situations where a device could cause serious injury or death. The problem was a firmware error that could prevent the device from exiting MRI mode, which leaves stimulation switched off. The recall covered 155,028 U.S. devices and was associated with 186 reported incidents and 73 injuries, with no deaths. This is the only Class I recall of any spinal cord stimulator manufacturer, which is why Abbott figures prominently in the litigation even though it does not yet have its own MDL.

A note on numbers, because incorrect ones circulate. Some pages report roughly 197,000 devices or 76 injuries for this recall. Those figures do not match the FDA record, which is 155,028 devices and 73 injuries. We use the FDA figures.

The other recalls

Abbott also had a Class II recall in May 2024 concerning the interval between the elective replacement indicator and end of service, and a Class II recall in October 2025 involving Eterna Bluetooth functionality. Class II is a less severe category than Class I. Separately, an April 17, 2026 urgent medical device correction described as a Surgery Mode issue has been reported. That correction does not yet have an FDA-classified recall record, so we describe it as an unclassified correction and not as a recall until the FDA classifies it.

Why there is no Abbott MDL yet

When the JPML created MDL-3181 on June 5, 2026, it declined to centralize the Abbott cases, but the reason was procedural. All four Abbott cases before the Panel were pending in the Northern District of Illinois, and the federal centralization statute (Section 1407) requires actions pending in different districts. As the Panel put it, it could not centralize cases against only Abbott on those facts. The denial was without prejudice, and a fresh centralization petition against Abbott was filed weeks later and remains pending. In other words, the denial says nothing about whether the Abbott claims have merit.

Devices

Abbott spinal cord stimulator devices reported in the litigation include the Proclaim XR, Proclaim Plus, Proclaim DRG, and Eterna systems. Device lists are drawn from manufacturer product lines and reporting rather than from a court exhibit, and the specific device you had is recorded in your implant and device records.

The filing deadline is the urgent issue

The single most useful thing to know about timing comes from a July 14, 2026 order by Judge Patrick Schiltz in the District of Minnesota. He dismissed three of four plaintiffs as time-barred under one-year state limitations periods in Kentucky and Tennessee, and held that the clock starts on inquiry notice, which he located at the earlier of being advised to turn the device off or the onset of dramatic new symptoms after implant. None of those plaintiffs had an explant, and revision or explant surgery was not treated as the trigger. This contradicts the two-to-four-year timeline advertised on many firm pages. Deadlines vary by state and this analysis will not apply everywhere, but treat the timeline as urgent.