HP Sued Over Medical Devices

A former Hewlett-Packard Co. employee sued the computer giant Thursday, alleging that HP and its spinoff, Agilent Technologies Inc., tried to defraud customers by selling defective medical devices.

Robert Hindin’s lawsuit seeks damages that could reach the tens of millions of dollars under the California False Claims Act. The suit claims HP engaged in a “scheme to defraud its customers by knowingly selling defective and potentially dangerous medical devices.”

HP could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Hindin, who worked for HP as production manager and manufacturing engineer for eight years before being fired in 1997, alleges that he tried to alert HP executives of “improper practices and repeated life-threatening failures” of several products in 1996.