On Thursday, a New Jersey jury ordered Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay punitive damages of $750 million to four plaintiffs, who alleged their talc-based baby powder caused cancer.
The verdict came after the first-ever testification of J&J's Chief Executive Alex Gorsky in the trial alleging the baby powder of causing cancer. J&J was held liable for the plaintiffs' cancer by a separate jury awarding them $37.2 million in compensation last September.
J&J stated that the judge is looking forward to reducing the damages to approximately $185 million. Plaintiffs lawyer Chris Placitella argued that punitive damages have to be five times the liability damages.
J&J said that they would appeal for both phases of the trial, claiming “numerous legal errors that subjected the jury to irrelevant information and prevented them from hearing meaningful evidence.”
J&J faces nearly 14,000 lawsuits against its products, Talcum Powder and Shower-to-Shower. All the lawsuits are centralised under multidistrict litigation MDL No. 2738; In Re: Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation. Another set of lawsuits is consolidated before the district court judge of California under Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding No. 4877.
