Johnson & Johnson has said it will fight back against last week’s findings by a jury that it should pay $15m to a Connecticut man who alleges he developed mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, from using the company's talc powder for decades.
Plaintiff Evan Plotkin had sued the company in 2021 soon after his diagnosis, saying he was sickened by inhaling J&J’s baby powder, Reuters reports.
The jury in Connecticut Superior Court also found that the company should pay additional punitive damages, which will be determined later by the judge overseeing the case.
But Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice-president of litigation, said in a statement that the company would appeal “erroneous” rulings by the trial judge that kept the jury from hearing critical facts about the case.
“Those facts show that the verdict is irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming talc is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer,” Haas said.
The latest verdict comes as J&J seeks to resolve claims – by more than 62 000 people who say that they developed ovarian and other gynaecological cancers from talc – through a nearly $9bn settlement in bankruptcy.
The bankruptcy deal, which faces legal challenges from some plaintiffs’ lawyers, has put the lawsuits over gynaecological cancers on hold, but does not affect the much smaller number of mesothelioma claims like this most recent one. The company has previously settled some of those claims but has not proposed a nationwide settlement.
Plaintiffs in all of the lawsuits say that J&J’s talc products, like its once iconic baby powder, were tainted with asbestos, a carcinogen known to cause mesothelioma and other cancers.
J&J withdrew its talc-based powder products from the US market in 2020.
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