J&J SETS ASIDE $4 BILLION FOR POWDER VERDICT, SETTLEMENTS

Johnson & Johnson said it set aside almost $4 billion to cover the biggest verdict against the company over its Baby Powder and other settlements while it’s appealing the 2018 loss to the US Supreme Court.

In a Monday securities filing, J&J said it was taking a “litigation expense of $3.9 billion” related to ‘primarily talc-related reserves and certain settlements.”

It also said J&J now faces 25,000 lawsuits by former Baby Powder users who claim asbestos-laced talc in the product caused their cancers. That’s almost a 39% jump in the number of cases from last year. It reserved some of the money for a 2018 Missouri verdict for 20 women who blamed the company’s powders for ovarian cancer.

The $4.7 billion verdict was later cut to $2.1 billion and J&J appealed.

The Missouri Supreme Court in November refused to hear J&J’S arguments that the reduced verdict was flawed and excessive.

The company is now asking the US Supreme Court to throw the award out entirely.

The original verdict—which included one of the largest punitive-damages awards in the US legal history—sparked a significant drop in J&J’S shares. “Missouri, one of the most conservative courts in the nation, upheld a verdict because J&J killed countless women by maliciously hiding the asbestos in their baby powder,” Mark Lanier, lead lawyer for the talc users in the St. Louis case, said in an emailed statement on Monday.

“Now J&J wants a get out of jail free card. A responsible company would pay their debts,”lanier added.

The women in the St. Louis case cited internal J&J documents from the early 1970s indicating officials found traces of asbestos in their talc products and never made those findings public.

J&J contends its talc is safe and hasn’t been contaminated by asbestos. J&J pulled its talcbased baby powder off the shelves in the US and Canada last year.

J&J CONTENDS ITS TALC IS SAFE AND HASN’T BEEN CONTAMINATED BY ASBESTOS