Johnson & Johnson sentenced to pay $ 4.7 billion in a case of talc cancer

Johnson & Johnson fell after a jury ordered the company to pay $ 4.69 billion to women who claimed asbestos in the company's talcum products, causing ovarian cancer, the sixth biggest defect in American history. The awarding of $ 4.14 billion in punitive damages and $ 550 million to compensate 22 women and their families for their losses caused the giant's health and consumer products to fall by 1.9% at $ 125.28 at 8:03 am Friday in New York. York

The verdict pronounced Thursday by the jurors of the St. Louis City Court came in the first test of the plaintiffs 'claims of a link between asbestos and cancer' s. ovary using J & J's iconic baby powder. Asbestos cases are part of more than 9,000 claims alleging that J & J's talc products cause cancer.

The company will appeal, Carol Goodrich, a spokeswoman, said in an email. The verdict "was the product of a fundamentally unfair process that allowed the plaintiffs to present a group of 22 women, most of whom had no connection with Missouri, in one case, all alleging that They had developed ovarian cancer ". ] That each claimant and his family members received $ 25 million for their losses "regardless of their individual facts, and differences in applicable law, reflects that the evidence in the case was simply overwhelmed by the prejudice this type of procedure ".

According to Credit Suisse badyst Vamil Divan, who has outperformed the company's shares, investors are likely to focus more on Talc business in the wake of the plaintiffs' high sentence. Divan said that he is confident that J & J can absorb "even relatively large payments" to resolve the cases.

> Multiple Errors & # 39;

The company's products do not contain asbestos and do not cause ovarian cancer, she says. Goodrich predicts the verdict would be reversed. "The multiple errors in this trial were worse than those of previous trials that were overturned."

J & J "will call until the cows return home, or until all the plaintiffs die," said the plaintiffs' attorney. an interview on Thursday. J & J should remove its talc-based products from the market or "mark them with a serious warning," he said.

The women also sued a unit of Imerys SA, which supplied talc to J & J. Imerys Talc America was installed before the trial on confidential terms. The company has agreed to pay at least $ 5 million to settle the claims, according to two people aware of the case

According to Jean Eggen, a law professor at Widener University who teaches cases of clbad-related crimes, the jury's decision that asbestos in J & J's baby powder caused Ovarian cancer in women could be a longer-term concern. 19659002] "It was a new theory and the jury sided behind," Eggen said. "This can be a harbinger of things to come and there are many more cases of ovarian cancer than powder-related asbestos cases."

Welcome to St. Louis, the new hot spot of litigious tourists

The products were contaminated with asbestos and prevented this information from reaching the public, said Lanier, the lawyer. complainants, to jurors in closing arguments. J & J sought to protect Baby Powder's image as "their sacred cow," he said.

The company has "rigged" tests to avoid showing the presence of asbestos, said Mr. Lanier. If a test showed the presence of asbestos, J & J sent it to a laboratory that the company knew would produce different results, he told jurors.

J & J denied any asbestos contamination or any rigged test. The accusations of suppressing or ignoring the tests do not make sense, said Peter A. Bicks, the company's trial counsel in Wednesday's closures.

J & J "hired the country's best laboratories after the year" to test asbestos, "he said. someone at J & J decides to expose babies to asbestos? Why all the tests? The mineral traces in the talc are not evidence of asbestos contamination, said Bicks. These fibers are not asbestos but harmless mineral fragments, he said.

"I'm Terminal"

Talc was not harmless, says Toni Roberts, 61 years old. The verdict. Roberts was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014. She is taking chemotherapy in Roanoke, Va., But describes it as a palliative treatment. "None of the treatments work for me," she said. "I am terminal."

Roberts has two children and two grandchildren, including a third in December. "But I'm not likely to be here," she said. While she was happy to be part of a winning team, she said, "This is not how I wanted my life to end."

After the Announcing punitive damages, the plaintiffs, their families and their lawyers gathered around the jurors, hugging and thanking them. "God bless you," said many plaintiffs in tears.

A juror, Evan Klene, 24, a financial badyst, said the jury had tried "to understand all of what these women had experienced."

& # 39; Asbestos Expert "

He blamed J & J for his defense of asbestos. "We had the impression that the plaintiffs' asbestos expert was much stronger than the defense one," Klene said.

He said punitive damages of $ 4.14 billion stemmed from a formula that included annual earnings of baby powder.

At some point in the proceedings, the jury asked the judge for magic markers and ice cream sandwiches

Most of the women participating in the St. Louis trial used baby powder, but Others used Shower-to-Shower, another talc-based product from J & J. Valeant has now sold the product to Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. in 2012. Valeant now faces a lawsuit on body powder.

Women who sued, whose jobs range from school bus driver to executive director of a vocational rehabilitation program including Pennsylvania, California, Arizona and New York. Six of these women have died and their families have filed lawsuits for wrongful murder against J & J.

More than half of the 95-seat courtroom on Wednesday was occupied by plaintiffs and their relatives . Some wiped tears as Lanier discussed their ailments

Hearing the plaintiffs' accounts of their cancers was "heartbreaking," Bicks told jurors on Wednesday. "But aside from sympathy, the plaintiffs did not come close to proving their case."

The lawsuits were initiated by the lawyer advertising, Bicks said. The lawsuit was "an attempt to use sympathy in pursuit of a big pay day of a defender deep pockets."

J & J faced several lawsuits in Saint -Louis on the claims of ovarian cancer, losing four of the first five trials. Two of the plaintiffs' verdicts, one for $ 72 million and the other for $ 55 million, were wiped out on appeal on grounds of jurisdiction. The other two are on appeal, facing the same challenges of J & J.

The company had a better record with judges than juries in cases of ovarian cancer. A separate award from the plaintiffs for $ 417 million by a Los Angeles jury in August was overturned by the trial judge who ruled that the evidence did not support the verdict. A New Jersey judge in 2016 blocked trials in that state by launching two cases to be tried, also lacking scientific evidence.

J & J is also conducting a separate battle with plaintiffs who accuse the company's talcum products of developing mesothelioma. In 1965, California jurors awarded $ 25.7 million to a woman who was diagnosed with mesothelioma for consistently using talc on children and herself. These decisions followed the New Jersey Jury's decision in April that J & J and Imerys America were to pay $ 117 million to a banker who claimed his decision.

The punitive part of the St. Louis verdict may be particularly vulnerable to challenges or appeals after the trial.

Punitive damages are intended to deter corporations and other defendants. to engage in conduct that is considered scandalous, delusional or excessively reckless. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that such awards must be proportionate to the compensatory damages verdicts that justify them.

The High Court stated in 2002 that such penalties may be considered excessive if they exceed a ratio of 10%. . In other cases, the judges upheld a sentence four times higher than the compensatory damages.

According to the data compiled by Bloomberg, the verdicts pronounced are regularly reduced or erased after the jury's decisions. An amount of $ 4 billion in punishment in St. Louis would likely be considered "excessive," said Anthony Sabino, a law professor at St. John's University in New York. "J & J has a good chance to shoot him."