Restructuring Implant Fund Deadline Passes : Courts: Lawyers, manufacturers don’t reach accord to replace initial $4.25-billion settlement.

Lawyers for breast implant plaintiffs and manufacturers have failed to reach an agreement to restructure a $4.25-billion product liability settlement fund by a judge’s Wednesday deadline, the manufacturers said.

“There is no settlement, but we’re continuing to negotiate in good faith,” said Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. spokeswoman Jane Kramer.

The settlement, announced last year as the largest product liability settlement in U.S. history, was designed to set up a trust fund to pay medical claims for women with implants over the next 30 years. But the court overseeing the case decided the amount of the settlement was inadequate.

Lawyers told U.S. District Judge Sam Pointer during a two-hour telephone conference that two months of almost continuous, often contentious talks had failed to produce a larger agreement.

Pointer issued no immediate ruling. One of his options is dissolving the original agreement, in which some 440,000 women already have registered to participate.

The former implant manufacturers involved in the negotiations include Bristol-Myers Squibb, Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co., Union Carbide Corp. and Baxter Healthcare Corp.

A lead attorney for the women who sued expressed doubts there would be an agreement to replace the initial $4.25-billion settlement.

“It may be that somewhere down the line we would get all the major defendants in a deal . . . but that’s not where we are now,” said attorney Ralph Knowles. “I don’t think there’s any likelihood that there’s going to be a global settlement of the type we had before.”

But a spokeswoman for 3M, which committed $325 million toward the settlement, said the agreement was not dead. “We are continuing to negotiate,” Mary Auvin said from company headquarters in St. Paul, Minn.

Jane Kramer of Bristol-Myers said that company also was continuing to talk, but added: “There is no settlement.”

An implant recipient who would have received $1.4 million under the settlement was shocked that lawyers had missed Pointer’s deadline.

“I was so sure this would come to a good conclusion. All the women are going to be very disappointed. We waited so long,” said Louise Romans of Winter Springs, Fla., who suffers from lupus she attributes to silicone implants.

Women have blamed breast implants for a wide variety of health problems, ranging from hardening of the breasts to immunological diseases. Manufacturers deny their products hurt anyone.

Pointer approved the $4.25-billion settlement last fall. Implant recipients would have received net payments ranging from $105,000 to $1.4 million, depending on their health and age.