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Thomson Reuters
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson has pledged to appeal a $ 4.7 billion verdict awarded to 22 women who claim talc-tinged talcum in corporate products has given them cancer Ovarian arguments arguing the plaintiffs' science was flawed and the case should not have been heard in Missouri.
But several legal experts have stated that even though J & J has managed to win appeals in other talcum cases in Missouri, he will face a challenge by calling the verdict on Thursday at the Circuit Court from the city of Saint-Louis. .
John Beisner, a lawyer for Johnson & Johnson, said, "One of the most difficult things will be prioritizing what we call it first." He told Reuters the company's jurisdictional and scientific arguments to overturn Thursday's verdict.
In a statement responding to the verdict, J & J reiterated its position that its products never contained asbestos and were not carcinogenic.
Thursday's verdict is the largest to date following lawsuits alleging that talc-based products like J & J's baby powder have caused cancer. The jury made its decision in less than a day after five weeks of expert testimony from both parties.
The stakes are potentially high for J & J, which faces 9,000 cases nationwide for talc. The company has already managed to overturn big verdicts in talc business as well as other claims of damage caused by its products.
But several legal experts have stated that the Missouri courts, including at the appellate court and the Supreme Court level, were historically sympathetic to the plaintiffs and could be unresponsive to J & J's arguments. "J & J has strong arguments, but unless they manage to certify this case to the US Supreme Court, which is very long-standing, that decision is likely to resist," said Lars. Noah, a law professor at the University of Florida.
He said that he was waiting for J & J to go through the appeals process but would eventually settle the case.
Beisner said that he was not aware of any interest in the settlement. "Our attention will remain focused on the appeals of this trial and other pending trials."
Beisner said the jurisdiction will be an important basis for J & J to appeal Thursday's verdict. Most of the 22 plaintiffs were not residents of Missouri, and he said that they should not have been allowed to sue Johnson & Johnson of New Jersey in St. Louis under the law. a recent decision of the US Supreme Court that severely restricted the jurisdiction of state courts. by non-residents against foreign companies.
J & J took this decision to successfully reverse the previous talc verdicts in Missouri.
Mark Lanier, the plaintiffs' attorney who won the verdict on Thursday, said he was ready for this argument.
Lanier said his team had accumulated "hundreds of pages of evidence" showing J & J's lobbying efforts and baby powder focus groups in the state. He also pointed to the claim of 15 of his non-resident customers that they were using a short-life J & J-specific talc product made by a Missouri contractor.
"I hope they will focus their appeal on jurisdiction because I am confident that we will win that," Lanier said. He said that he was expecting the amount of punitive damages to be halved during the appeal process due to a state law of the Missouri that caps this damage, but is confident that the verdict would be globally sound.
Total damages of $ 4.69 billion include $ 550 million in compensatory damages and $ 4.14 billion in punitive damages.
Elizabeth Burch, a law professor at the University of Georgia, said that even according to the new Supreme Court guidelines, women's badertion that they were using the specific product, if it was true , provided "a fairly close connection with Missouri."
In the first instance, J & J had tried unsuccessfully to cast doubt on the allegations of the 15 women who had used the same product that was only available for a few months, describing it as a trick designed to circumvent the problem of jurisdiction. Beisner said J & J would make the same argument on appeal.
In addition to jurisdictional arguments, Beisner said that the company would continue to argue that scientific studies mbadively show that talc itself is safe and that the company's talc-based products never contained asbestos.
"None of the complainants' experts has been able to present a valid theory and there is simply no science to support what they call asbestos in the product, "said Beisner.
J & J states that decades of testing by independent laboratories and agencies, including a study by the US Food and Drug Administration, support its position. The company said that the complainants' tests showing asbestos contamination were "scientific waste".
But Lanier argued that it was the agencies and laboratories cited by J & J that used imperfect test methods that failed to detect asbestos.
Noah said that Missouri judges have historically applied a lower standard than the federal court for the admission of scientific evidence. Last year, the state pbaded legislation requiring its courts to adopt the federal standard, but it said that state courts would interpret this requirement for years to come.
"The Missouri Judges will not suddenly change their minds," Noah said.
(Report by Tina Bellon, edited by Anthony Lin and Leslie Adler)
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