Woman gets $417m in baby powder case
Payout marks the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuits
ALos Angeles jury on Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record $417 million (Dh1.53 billion) to a hospitalised woman who claimed in a lawsuit that the talc in the company’s iconic baby powder causes ovarian cancer when applied regularly for feminine hygiene.
The verdict in the lawsuit brought by the California woman, Eva Echeverria, marks the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuit verdicts against Johnson & Johnson in courts around the United Sttaes.
Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers about talcum powder’s potential cancer risks.
She used the company’s baby powder on a daily basis beginning in the 1950s until 2016 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, according to court papers.
Echeverria developed ovarian cancer as a “proximate result of the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of talcum powder”, she said in her lawsuit.
Echeverria’s attorney, Mark Robinson, said his client is undergoing cancer treatment while hospitalised and told him she hoped the verdict would lead Johnson & Johnson to put additional warnings on its products.
“Mrs Echeverria is dying from this ovarian cancer and she said to me all she wanted to do was to help the other women throughout the whole country who have ovarian cancer for using Johnson & Johnson for 20 and 30 years,” Robinson said.
The jury’s award included $68 million in compensatory damages and $340 million in punitive damages, Robinson said.