Linda Batiste (middle) with her grandson and nonprofit founder Aaron Horton

Linda Batiste (middle) with her grandson, Joshua Clinton, and nonprofit founder Aaron Horton

A Lake Highlands woman who was at the center of a massive medical lawsuit last year has died.

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Linda Batiste won a $1.2 million verdict in a battle against Johnson & Johnson, makers of a vaginal-mesh implant used to treat incontinence.

She successfully argued that the device was defective. J&J is up against some 12,000 similar lawsuits, and other makers of the implants also are facing legal action.

Batiste never enjoyed the settlement. Her family hasn’t received a cent, since J&J appealed the ruling. Even if she had lived to see a payday, it could not have compensated for her suffering. She tearfully told reporters at the trial that she had been in pain every day since her surgery.

She died Aug. 8 at age 65.

Batiste was a pioneer for all women suffering from mesh-related complications, says Aaron Horton, a Lakewood resident about whom the Advocate published a story in 2014, after she launched a nonprofit called The Mesh Warrior Foundation For the Injured through which she advocates for victims.

“Enduring pain and while walking with a cane, [Batiste] attended almost every day of her landmark trial against Johnson & Johnson last spring,” notes Horton on her blog. “Though she lost the battle for her life, she died knowing that she had won the war.”

She adds that Batiste was a friend, mother and grandmother who loved sunflowers and the color purple.