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A Los Angeles jury has ordered johnson and johnson To pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died mesotheliomaFound the company liable in the latest legal battle over its talc products and their alleged link to cancer.
The family of Mae Moore, a California resident who died in 2021 at the age of 88, began legal action the same year. he opposed it johnson and johnson Talc-based baby powder products contained asbestos fibers, which he claimed caused him a rare form of cancer.
The jury’s verdict, handed down late Monday, orders Johnson & Johnson to pay $950 million in punitive damages, according to court documents.
This important award may face cuts on appeal US Supreme Court have previously indicated that punitive damages should generally not exceed nine times the compensatory damages.
Eric Haas, Johnson & Johnson’s vice president of worldwide litigation, called the ruling “egregious and unconstitutional” and said the company intends to immediately appeal.
“Plaintiff attorneys in this Moore case based their arguments on ‘junk science’ that should never have been presented to the jury,” Haas said.
The company has said that its products are safe, do not include these AsbestosAnd does not cause cancer. Johnson & Johnson stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the US in 2020 and switched to a cornstarch product. Mesothelioma has been linked to exposure to asbestos.
Trey Branham, one of the attorneys representing Moore’s family, said after the verdict that his team was “hopeful that Johnson & Johnson will ultimately accept responsibility for these senseless deaths.”
Johnson & Johnson is Facing lawsuits from more than 67,000 plaintiffs Joe says he was diagnosed with cancer after using baby powder and other talcum products, according to court filings. The number of lawsuits alleging talc caused mesothelioma is a small subset of these cases, the majority of which involve ovarian cancer Claim.
Johnson & Johnson has sought to resolve the lawsuit through bankruptcy, a proposal that has been rejected three times by federal courts.
Lawsuits alleging talc caused mesothelioma were not part of the previous bankruptcy proposal. The company has previously settled some of those claims, but has not reached a nationwide settlement, so several lawsuits over mesothelioma have been heard in state courts in recent months.
Over the past year, Johnson & Johnson has faced several important decisions in mesothelioma cases, but Monday’s decision is one of the largest. The company has won some mesothelioma trials, including one in South Carolina last week, where a jury found Johnson & Johnson not liable.
The company has been successful in reducing some awards on appeal, including a case in Oregon, where a state judge granted Johnson & Johnson’s motion to throw out a $260 million judgment and hold a new trial.