J&J's run of talc lawsuit setbacks continues

A California jury has awarded $40 million in damages to two women who sued Johnson & Johnson, claiming that its talc-based Baby Powder product led to their ovarian cancer.

The jury in a Los Angeles higher court sided with Monica Kent and Deborah Schultz – and the latter's husband, Dr Albert Schultz – arrived at the judgment after four weeks of testimony that included input from former FDA Commissioner David Kessler, who led the agency in the 1990s.

Kessler appeared for the plaintiffs, claiming that J&J was aware of a link between asbestos in mined talc and cancer since the 1970s, but concealed it for decades. The company took all its talc-based products off the market and replaced them with alternatives using cornstarch.

The jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to the Schultz after agreeing with their counsel that J&J had failed in its duty to warn people using its talc products of the risks. A spokesman for the company, Erik Haas, said that it will "immediately appeal this verdict and expect to prevail as we typically do with aberrant adverse verdicts."

The company has repeatedly argued that all of its talc products have been asbestos-free since the 1970s, claiming that this has been demonstrated repeatedly in tests carried out in-house, as well as by regulators and independent laboratories.

J&J is facing lawsuits from more than 67,000 plaintiffs in the US, with another 3,000 in the UK recently launching a similar action.

The latest judgment follows another setback in its defence in October, when a California jury awarded an eye-watering $966 million to the family of Mae Moore, who died from the rare lung cancer mesothelioma aged 88 in 2021, after concluding that J&J's Baby Powder talc products were at fault.

The company has attempted to use bankruptcy proceedings to settle talc lawsuits, setting up a company – backed by billions of dollars in cash – to absorb the liability. However, three attempts to complete this manoeuvre – known as a Texas two-step - failed in federal courts on the grounds that J&J was not in sufficient financial stress to qualify for bankruptcy.

Those bankruptcy proceedings held up other litigation on the issue, and the company is now reported to be facing 10 or more trials expected through the first half of 2026. It had a mixed record prior to that, recording some big losses, but also some wins, with all claims either denied of damages reduced on appeal, and some settlements out of court.