J&J Comes Out Clean Twice In Talcum Powder Trial

J&J Comes Out Clean Twice In Talcum Powder Trial

Introduction

On Wednesday, a California state court jury cleared Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in a lawsuit filed by a woman alleging the company’s talc-based products contained asbestos, which caused her cancer.

The jury rejected the allegations from the plaintiff by a vote of 10-2. This is the seventh jury that has passed the judgment in favor of J&J. The trial started in early September, where the plaintiff's attorneys had asked for  $1.3 million in economic damages and unspecified punitive damages. The previous trial in the same case ended in a mistrial where the attorneys had asked for $28 million in damages.

Meanwhile, in Missouri, an appeals court reversed a 2017 judgment of $110 million verdict involving a Virginia woman who claimed she developed ovarian cancer after decades of using J&J's talc-based products.

Nearly 14,000 Talcum Powder and Shower-to-Shower lawsuits are consolidated under multidistrict litigation MDL No. 2738; In Re: Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation. Lawsuits are also pending in a coordinated California proceeding under Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding No. 4877.

Earlier, the Sixth Circuit rejected the efforts by the Ohio attorney general and drug companies to impede an upcoming opioid trial accusing drugmakers of fueling the opioid crisis.

The panel, along with rejecting the state’s arguments that the counties involved usurped its parent of the nation authority, also rejected the drugmakers' bid to disqualify the judge overseeing the trial.

Attorney General Dave Yost argued through an August 30 petition that the lawsuits filed by the counties threatened the state’s authority to protect the public welfare. The panel ruled, stating that the state hadn’t met, the high bar required for obtaining a writ of mandamus, also Yost did not show how the state would have been harmed by the lawsuits brought by Summit County and Cuyahoga County.

Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, had opposed the attorney general’s bid stating that he would refuse any legislation that gives the attorney general control over the counties’ suit as the local governments have shown a significant impact of the opioid epidemic.