J&J is going through roughly 73,570 fits from shoppers who blame child powder for his or her sicknesses as of the top of September, the corporate stated final week in securities filings. The pharma large beforehand stated it was going through about 62,830 fits as of December 2024 over the now-withdrawn model of the product.
The enhance provides to J&J’s litigation woes over its talc-based child powder, which it took off the market in 2023 and changed with a cornstarch substitute. The rising caseload follows a California jury’s choice earlier this month awarding $966 million to the household of a deceased lady who blamed her most cancers on life-long use of child powder.
The bounce ought to prod J&J officers to make “another attempt to reach a global settlement because the morass of baby powder cases only promises to deepen and impose even greater expense,” stated Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond professor who specialises in product-liability regulation.
J&J has steadfastly maintained talc doesn’t trigger most cancers and that there’s by no means been any asbestos in its child powder. The firm additionally says it has appropriately marketed the product for greater than 100 years. It is refusing to pay greater than the $9 billion it provided over the last chapter case.
“Volume does not connote merit,” stated Erik Haas, the J&J in-house lawyer main the corporate’s defence within the child powder instances. “This is an expected development following our return to the tort system.”
Bloomberg Intelligence’s Holly Froum has predicted the variety of child powder instances may develop to greater than 93,000. She stated J&J may in the end be compelled to pay as a lot as $11 billion to resolve all the present and future fits. J&J already has spent greater than $3 billion settling lawsuits alleging asbestos in its child powder harmed customers, in keeping with knowledge compiled by Bloomberg.
J&J is gearing up for a brand new wave of jury trials after a chapter decide in Houston concluded in April that the corporate couldn’t use a subsidiary’s Chapter 11 submitting to power shoppers to settle claims J&J hid the well being dangers of its talc-based powders.
After failing thrice to discover a chapter answer, J&J vowed to return to the common court docket system to defend the newborn powder instances. It faces its first ovarian-cancer declare trial because the chapter ruling in California subsequent month. Other trials will comply with in state courts in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois and Florida.
A federal decide in New Jersey is also readying the primary federal-court trial of 1000’s of instances consolidated earlier than him for pre-trial info exchanges. Those instances had been delayed by the repeated chapter filings.
A dozen state-court juries have held J&J and its Kenvue spinoff answerable for child powder customers’ cancers and awarded billions of {dollars} in damages in whole. Some of these awards later have been diminished or thrown out on enchantment, nevertheless.
J&J spun off its shopper merchandise enterprise, together with Johnson’s child merchandise, Tylenol and Aveeno, in 2023 right into a separate firm, Kenvue Inc.
By Jef Feeley
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Johnson & Johnson Ordered To Pay $966 Million in Talc Cancer Case
A Los Angeles jury ordered J&J to pay $966 million to the household of a girl who died from mesothelioma, discovering the corporate liable within the newest trial alleging its talc merchandise trigger most cancers.