Jury awards $417M in Johnson & Johnson talc case
A Los Angeles jury awarded $417 million to a woman suffering from ovarian cancer who alleged her illness is linked to the talc in Johnson’s Baby Powder.
The judgment includes $347 million in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson. It was the latest among several verdicts against the consumer-products maker, with about 2,000 women having filed similar cases.
In the latest verdict, plaintiff Eva Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson was aware of potential dangers from consistently using its talcum-based products for personal hygiene but refused to warn the public.
“My client’s dying,” attorney Mark Robinson said Monday, adding she was too ill to attend the trial and is now living with her daughter and grandson. “But she feels good today that maybe women in America and maybe even Johnson & Johnson will get the message.’’
Robinson said Echeverria used Johnson’s Baby Powder sometimes twice a day for 41 years, continuing to do so even after she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. It was only in February 2016 when she saw a news report about another woman who’d brought a lawsuit after allegedly becoming ill from talcumbased products that Echeverria finally stopped using it.
“We will appeal today’s verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder,” spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement.
But Robinson said he believes the jury was swayed in part by Johnson & Johnson’s own documents, dating to 1964, that purport to show the company knew there was a risk of ovarian cancer from using talcum powder for feminine hygiene.
A St. Louis jury in May awarded $110.5 million to a Virginia woman diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. Three other juries in St. Louis reached similar conclusions, awarding a total of more than $300 million to plaintiffs.