Johnson & Johnson has seen a 17% jump in new lawsuits claiming its iconic baby powder causes cancer after the company’s latest attempt to force a global settlement was thrown out of bankruptcy court.
J&J is facing approximately 73,570 suits from consumers who blame baby powder for their illnesses as of the end of September, the company said last week in securities filings. The pharma giant previously said it was facing about 62,830 suits as of December 2024 over the now-withdrawn version of the product.
The increase adds to J&J’s litigation woes over its talc-based baby powder, which it took off the market in 2023 and replaced with a cornstarch substitute. The rising caseload follows a California jury’s decision earlier this month awarding $966 million to the family of a deceased woman who blamed her cancer on life-long use of baby powder.
The jump should prod J&J officials to make “another attempt to reach a global settlement because the morass of baby powder cases only promises to deepen and impose even greater expense,” said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond professor who specializes in product-liability law.
J&J has steadfastly maintained talc doesn’t cause cancer and that there’s never been any asbestos in its baby powder. The company also says it has appropriately marketed the product for more than 100 years. It is refusing to pay more than the $9 billion it offered during the last bankruptcy case.
“Volume does not connote merit,” said Erik Haas, the J&J in-house lawyer leading the company’s defense in the baby powder cases. “This is an expected development following our return to the tort system.”
Bloomberg Intelligence’s Holly Froum has predicted the number of baby powder cases could grow to more than 93,000. She said J&J could ultimately be forced to pay as much as $11 billion to resolve all the current and future suits. J&J already has spent more than $3 billion settling lawsuits alleging asbestos in its baby powder harmed users, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
J&J is gearing up for a new wave of jury trials after a bankruptcy judge in Houston concluded in April that the company couldn’t use a subsidiary’s Chapter 11 filing to force consumers to settle claims J&J hid the health risks of its talc-based powders.
After failing three times to find a bankruptcy solution, J&J vowed to return to the regular court system to defend the baby powder cases. It faces its first ovarian-cancer claim trial since the bankruptcy ruling in California next month. Other trials will follow in state courts in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois and Florida.
A federal judge in New Jersey also is readying the first federal-court trial of thousands of cases consolidated before him for pre-trial information exchanges. Those cases had been delayed by the repeated bankruptcy filings.
A dozen state-court juries have held J&J and its Kenvue spinoff responsible for baby powder users’ cancers and awarded billions of dollars in damages in total. Some of those awards later were reduced or thrown out on appeal, however.
J&J spun off its consumer products business, including Johnson’s baby products, Tylenol and Aveeno, in 2023 into a separate company, Kenvue Inc.
The consolidated federal case is In Re Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, 16-md-2738, US District Court for the District of New Jersey (Trenton).
Photo: Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Topics Lawsuits
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