Olympus ordered to pay Seattle hospital $6.6M in damages over scopes contaminated with superbug

A jury ordered the giant medical scope maker Olympus Corp. to pay a Seattle hospital $6.6 million in damages tied to a deadly superbug outbreak - and told the hospital to pay $1 million to a deceased patient’s family. But jurors on Monday also handed the Tokyo-based manufacturer a key win, rejecting claims that its flagship duodenoscope was unsafe as designed. The decision follows an eight-week trial, the first in the U.S. related to gastrointestinal scopes causing outbreaks of drug-resistant infections. The case was filed by Theresa Bigler, 61, and her four children in connection with the August 2013 death of Richard Bigler, a pancreatic cancer patient who contracted an infection linked to a contaminated Olympus scope.