Navan Ward

About Navan

Navan is a principal at Beasley Allen Law Firm. He is the firm’s lead attorney on the metal-on-metal hip implant litigation, proton pump inhibitor (PPI) litigation, and practices from the Atlanta office. Navan is licensed to practice in Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and New York. He is also an Executive Board Member of “Shades of Mass.” Navan is honored to currently serve as the Immediate Past President of the American Association for Justice (AAJ).

Background

Before he arrived at Beasley Allen, Navan had experience working for an insurance defense firm and an employment law firm. He was involved in cases dealing with medical malpractice, auto accidents, contractor liability, race discrimination and sexual harassment in the workplace.

Navan is married to the former Bridget L. Maynor, of Irondale, Alabama, and they have twin sons, Roman and Jaxon. Navan attends church at Northview Christian Church – Communion City.

Notable Cases

Hip Implant Litigation

Navan’s hip implant litigation involves victims who have defective hip implants causing severe pain, metal poisoning, revision surgery, and in some cases, permanent injury. These defective hip devices are manufactured by various companies, such as Johnson & Johnson and DePuy Orthopedics, among others.

He has been instrumental in assisting with the verdicts and global settlements against major hip implant manufacturers, including Johnson & Johnson / DePuy for $4.057 billion, Howmedica Osteonics Corporation / Stryker for over $1 billion, and Biomet Corporation for more than $250 million, as well as additional confidential settlements involving other metal-on-metal and/or modular-neck hip components.

Medication Litigation

Upon arrival at Beasley Allen, Navan was responsible for overseeing the Meridia pharmaceutical drug litigation, a medication that caused heart attacks and strokes, as part of the Mass Torts Section.

Navan’s PPI litigation involve people who use PPI’s (ie: Prilosec, Prevacid, Protonix, Nexium, Dexilant, etc.) for acid reflux and suffer severe kidney damage or stomach cancer as a result.

Navan was also heavily involved with the hormone replacement therapy litigation, representing hundreds of women who were diagnosed with breast cancer as a result of ingesting these combination hormone medications. His trial team was responsible for obtaining a $72.6 million verdict for three hormone therapy clients that went to trial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Navan was heavily involved with the COX-2 inhibitor (Vioxx, Celebrex and Bextra) pharmaceutical drug litigation. These drugs were used for the treatment of arthritis, but caused heart attacks, strokes and serious skin reactions. Specifically, he was the firm’s lead attorney for the Celebrex and Bextra pharmaceutical litigation. Navan was one of the leaders in the Bextra/Celebrex Multidistrict Litigation, serving on both the Science and Discovery committees.

Additionally, Navan was responsible for overseeing the Permax and Dostinex pharmaceutical drug litigation. These drugs were used for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease but caused damage to the users’ heart valves. Overall, Navan has obtained more than $360 million for the specific clients that he has represented in the various areas he has practiced.

Litigation Leadership Positions

Navan was selected to a team of lead lawyers, called the Plaintiffs Steering Committee (PSC), for the DePuy “ASR” Hip Implant Recall Multi-District Litigation (MDL), as well as for the DePuy “Pinnacle” Hip Implant MDL. Navan was also appointed as co-lead counsel for the Plaintiffs Executive Committee (PEC) in the Biomet M2a Magnum Hip Implant Products Liability MDL. Navan has also recently been appointed to the PEC for the PPI MDL litigation.

Other Litigation

As a member of the Personal Injury Section, he mostly litigated nursing home neglect and abuse, as well as wrongful death trucking cases in Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Navan has litigated cases where the nursing home resident suffered from injuries such as multiple falls, bedsores, malnutrition, dehydration, aspiration pneumonia and sepsis/infections. He has been successful in obtaining verdicts and/or settlements in the millions for his nursing home and wrongful death trucking clients.

Professional Associations

Navan has served in leadership positions for various legal organizations. He is Past President of the American Association for Justice, which is formerly known as the American Trial Lawyers Association. This is Navan’s tenth consecutive year serving on the Executive Committee. He has also served as a past chairman of the Minority Caucus, past chairman of the Diversity & Inclusion Committee and a member of the Board of Governors. Most recently, Navan is a founding member of the Executive Committee of “Shades of Mass,” which is a group that advocates and facilitates the appointment of minorities to leadership roles in federal and state-based centralized civil actions (including federal MDLs).

In addition, Navan is an American Bar Association (ABA) member, a member of The National Black Lawyers Top 100 Executive Committee, serving as a former Alabama State Bar delegate for the ABA. He is a past president of the Alabama Lawyers Association,  the Alabama State Bar’s Young Lawyers Section, and the Montgomery County Association for Justice. Navan also was a member of Leadership Montgomery’s Class XXI, a former chairman of the Father Walters Charity Golf Tournament, and a member of the Alabama Law Foundation Grant Committee.

Awards and Recognitions

Navan has earned a Martindale Hubbell AV Preeminent Rating. In 2017, he was awarded the American Association for Justice’s (AAJ) Minority Caucus Stalwart Award for his dedicated years of service to the organization. Navan has been regularly selected to the Best Lawyers in America list, as well as being named to the Super Lawyers list for the last few years. He has also been named to the Lawdragon 500 Leading Plaintiff Consumer Lawyers, which is the 500 best attorneys across the nation in this category.

Navan also received the AAJ Distinguished Service Award in 2012, and again in 2015. In 2014, Navan was the recipient of the AAJ’s Wiedemann & Wysocki Award. In 2013, he was selected as Beasley Allen’s Litigator of the Year. In 2011 and 2014, Navan was named Beasley Allen’s Mass Torts Section Lawyer of the Year.

Publicity

Navan has given several presentations concerning Talcum Powder litigation, PPI Litigation, the Johnson & Johnson / DePuy hip implant recall, Stryker modular-neck hip implant recall, defective metal-on-metal hip implants, hormone replacement therapy litigation, Cox-2 drug litigation, Permax/Dostinex litigation and nursing home litigation, Mass Tort Litigation, as well as various other practice skills presentations throughout the country.