A class action lawsuit was recently filed against Cochlear Limited, an Australian company that allegedly sold defective hearing aid implants.

The father of a deaf girl recently filed a class action lawsuit against Australian medical device company Cochlear Limited. The American father alleges that his daughter’s hearing implant failed and that his family suffered a variety of hardships due to Cochlear’s defective medical devices.

According to the complaint, the girl received Cochlear Limited’s Nucleus CI500 range of cochlear implants in June 2011. The devices were implanted under the skin behind her ears and placed into her inner ears to help her brain recognize sound. The father alleges that his daughter’s right implant failed in August 2011 and that the implant in her left ear failed in September 2011. Both implants were surgically removed that month.

The lawsuit alleges that the Australian government issued an urgent medical device recall in September 2011 after a wave of device failures. The recall was based on a manufacturing flaw that created small cracks in the medical devices that allowed water to enter the device and short the electric components. According to the lawsuit, at least 25,000 patients worldwide received the potentially defective cochlear implants.

The lawsuit alleges that Cochlear’s medical devices are both adulterated and misbranded under federal law because they are dangerous and defective.

In addition to his product liability claim, the father alleges that Cochlear failed to warn health care professionals and the public of the implants’ propensity to fail and failed to advertise the Australian recall in a timely manner for its U.S. customers.

The father also raises an unjust enrichment claim alleging that Cochlear wrongfully obtained profits from its hearing aid because no one would have bought the device had the failure rate been known.

The lawsuit seeks medical costs associated with removing the failed devices and corrective surgery, punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, and a medical monitoring program for the impacted class members.