J&J Ordered to Pay $966M in Talc Cancer Verdict

Written By Lexx Thornton

A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died from mesothelioma, delivering one of the largest verdicts to date in the ongoing litigation over the company’s talc products. The jury found J&J liable after the family of Mae Moore, a California resident who passed away in 2021 at age 88, claimed that the company’s talc-based baby powder contained asbestos fibers which caused her rare cancer, mesothelioma. 

The verdict, announced late Monday, included a massive $950 million in punitive damages—intended to punish the company—in addition to $16 million in compensatory damages. 

J&J immediately announced plans to appeal the decision. Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, labeled the verdict “egregious and unconstitutional,” asserting that the plaintiff’s arguments relied on “junk science” that should not have been presented to the jury. 

The company maintains that its products are safe, do not contain asbestos, and do not cause cancer. Legally, the award’s size could be significantly reduced on appeal; the U.S. Supreme Court has often ruled that punitive damages should generally not exceed nine times the compensatory damages. 

J&J stopped selling its talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, replacing it with a cornstarch product. Mesothelioma, the cancer at the center of this case, is a disease commonly linked to asbestos exposure. 

Trey Branham, an attorney for Moore’s family, expressed hope after the verdict that J&J would “finally accept responsibility for these senseless deaths.” 

This verdict is a part of a much larger legal battle. J&J currently faces lawsuits from more than 67,000 plaintiffs who allege they developed cancer after using the talc products. While the vast majority of these cases involve ovarian cancer claims, the lawsuits specifically alleging talc caused mesothelioma represent a smaller, but often high-stakes, subset. 

The company has repeatedly attempted to resolve the entire litigation through a bankruptcy filing, but this strategy has been rejected three times by federal courts. Importantly, the most recent bankruptcy proposal did not include the mesothelioma lawsuits. As J&J has not struck a nationwide settlement for these specific claims, many mesothelioma lawsuits have proceeded to trial in state courts. 

J&J’s results in these recent trials have been mixed. While the company was hit with several substantial verdicts in the past year, with Monday’s being among the largest, it also secured a win just last week in South Carolina, where a jury found J&J not liable. Furthermore, the company has successfully reduced some awards on appeal, including one Oregon case where a state judge threw out a $260 million verdict and ordered a new trial.