Johnson & Johnson was ordered by a jury to pay $300 million in punitive damages to a woman who blamed her rare asbestos-related cancer on decades of daily use of the company’s talc-based products. The ruling brings to $325 million the amount the state-court jury in Manhattan said J&J should pay Donna Olson and her husband over her cancer that she blamed on J&J’s baby powder and its former Shower-to-Shower product. The total verdict is one of the highest in more than two years of litigation over J&J talc products. Kim Montagnino, a J&J spokeswoman, said the company would appeal the jury’s findings because it believes the trial was flawed. “Of all the verdicts against Johnson & Johnson that have been through the appellate process, every one has been overturned,” she said in an emailed statement. J&J faces more than 14,000 claims that its powders caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a rare cancer linked to asbestos exposure. The company denies its products ever contained the carcinogen and argues talc doesn’t cause the life-threatening illnesses. Olson has mesothelioma in her lungs, according to court filings. “With this verdict, yet another jury has rejected J&J’s misleading claims that its talc was free of asbestos,” Jerome Block, the couple’s lawyer said in an emailed statement. “The internal J&J documents that the jury saw, once more laid bare the shocking truth of decades of cover-up, deception and concealment by J&J of the asbestos found in talc baby powder.” The case is Olson v. Brenntag, No. 190328/2017, New York Supreme Court (Manhattan). Copyright 2020 Bloomberg. Get the latest insurance newssent straight to your inbox.
Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has been ordered by a Manhattan jury to pay $300m in damages to Jerome Block who claimed her cancer was caused by the company's talcum powder products. J&J is facing more than 14,000 claims that its powder products contained asbestos and caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. J&J has denied its products ever contained asbestos and claimed that its powders do not cause the illnesses.