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 Donna Olson who claimed her cancer was caused by the company's talcum powder products. The verdict came after jurors deliberated for more than three hours over two days and heard from dozens of witnesses including Olson's husband and former co-worker. J&J has denied its products ever contained asbestos and claimed that its powders do not cause the illnesses.