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Johnson & Johnson was sentenced on Thursday to pay $ 4.69 billion to 22 women and their families who claimed that asbestos contained in talcum powder products had caused them cancer. ;ovary.
in punitive damages and $ 550 million in compensatory damages for the women, who had accused the company of not warning them of the cancer risks associated with her baby and body powders.
Johnson & Johnson, maker of Johnson's Baby Powder was "deeply disappointed" in the verdict and was planning to appeal. The company faces more than 9,000 plaintiffs in cases involving body powders with talc, according to a regulatory filing filed this spring.
After a six-week trial, the St. Louis Jury deliberated on compensatory damages for eight hours. punitive damages in about 45 minutes, said Mark Lanier, a lawyer for women.
Six of the women are dead; Almost everything else, as well as friends and relatives, were in the audience hall on Thursday. One of the plaintiffs was undergoing chemotherapy and was too sick to attend, says Mr. Lanier.
"There were people crying, people hugging each other," he added. "It was a rather moving scene."
Lanier stated that Johnson & Johnson had spent 40 years in hiding evidence of asbestos in some of its talc-based products and should tag them with warning labels or focus on powders to cornstarch base. In a product liability case, Johnson & Johnson called the verdict "the product of a fundamentally unfair process" that brought together 22 women with little ties to Missouri in a single group of plaintiffs in St. Louis
. The company "remains confident that its products do not contain asbestos and do not cause ovarian cancer and intends to pursue all available remedies on appeal," he said in a statement. a statement.
Asbestos is a carcinogen that sometimes appears in natural talc, but that was removed from commercial talc products in the 1970s, according to the C According to the National Cancer Institute, claims according to which talc used for feminine hygiene purposes can be absorbed by the reproductive system and cause inflammation in the ovaries are not supported by the "weight of proof".
Plaintiffs In the talc cases, litigation was brought up in smaller groups instead of pursuing Johnson & Johnson en masse. The risky strategy allows previous complainants to send signals about the legal tactics and their attribution is up to the women who file lawsuits later.
Clustering also maximizes the emotional effect of women's stories on juries, Lanier said. It is easier to get justice in small groups, "he said. "In small groups, people have names, but in large groups, these are numbers."
The first talc trial was held in 2013 at the Federal District Court in South Dakota. A jury found that Johnson & Johnson had been negligent, but did not award damages to the plaintiff. Several other cases have resulted in substantial damages, including a verdict of $ 417 million by jurors at the Los Angeles County Superior Court last year.
The plaintiff in the Los Angeles case died and the verdict was quashed.
Johnson & Johnson, who successfully appealed from a number of talc cases, said in his statement Thursday that "the multiple errors present in this lawsuit were worse than those of previous trials that were reversed. "
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