Three months after a jury awarded $260 million to an Oregon woman who claimed her use of Johnson’s Baby Powder caused her to develop mesothelioma, a state judge has overturned the verdict and granted the company a new trial.
On Friday during a lengthy hearing, Judge Katharine von ter Stegge sided with J&J on its appeal. She did not issue a written order but indicated that one was in the works. J&J and the law firm representing the claimant, Dallas-based Dean Omar Branham Shirley (DOBS), confirmed the success of the appeal.
In a statement, J&J's litigation chief Erik Haas praised the decision, calling the original verdict “indefensible” and the “result of numerous egregious errors committed by the plaintiff’s lawyers."
“Only through such prejudicial conduct have these lawyers secured their recent aberrant adverse jury verdicts, which have no basis in the law or science. The research, clinical evidence, and over 40 years of studies by independent medical experts around the world continue to support the safety of talc,” Hass added.
J&J is battling claims against its talc products on two fronts. It has offered a reported $7.6 billion to resolve approximately 62,000 lawsuits from ovarian cancer plaintiffs as part of a Texas two-step bankruptcy effort.
As for claims made by mesothelioma victims, the company has resolved roughly 95% but others remain active and problematic. An example came last month when a jury awarded $63.3 million in compensatory and punitive damages to a South Carolina man.
As for Kyung Lee, the Oregon woman who is a 49-year-old mother of three, she claimed that her inhalation of the talc during her use of the product for more than 30 years caused her to develop mesothelioma, which was diagnosed 13 months ago. Mesothelioma is an incurable form of lung cancer.
J&J countered that Lee’s disease was likely caused by her exposure to asbestos at a factory near where she was raised.
The company pulled its baby powder off the market in the United States in 2020 and now sells a cornstarch-based version. Testimony in the trial suggested that J&J knew that its talc-based products contained asbestos as early as 1970.
On Monday, DOBS said that it believes “that the jury reached the right and appropriate decision in this case and we look forward to having that question determined by the various courts of appeal in Oregon.”
Early this year, J&J agreed to pay $700 million to settle consumer protection claims that the company did not warn of the potential health risks caused by its talcum products.