Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Cancer Settlement Avoids Punitive Damages
Juries in the past have awarded enormous punitive damages based on the reprehensible conduct of the company
Sunday, April 16, 2023 - Johnson & Johnson has offered more than $9 billion to plaintiffs to settle more than 40,000 talcum powder cancer lawsuits that allege injury or death from using the iconic Johnson's Baby Powder regularly and for many years. According to NJ.com news, " Under a proposal announced Tuesday, a J&J subsidiary will re-file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and seek court approval for a plan that would result in one of the largest product-liability settlements in U.S. history. " The latest offer by the beauty and health care conglomerate quadruples the $2 billion that the company pledged when they formed LTL management, a spin-off company that contained only the company's talcum powder ovarian cancer legal liabilities and cash to pay plaintiffs. Opponents of the latest offering think that $9 billion is only a small fraction of the amount they would be entitled to if they were to go to court. About 40,000 talcum powder ovarian cancer claims have already been filed and it is estimated that talcum powder cancer lawyers have about another 50,000 clients that have signed up and are ready to file a claim. Lawyers who are favorable to the settlement are of the opinion that the offer is the quickest and fairest way to satisfy such a large number of plaintiffs while they are still alive. "The $8.9 billion that Johnson & Johnson would transfer to the subsidiary, LTL Management, would be payable over the next 25 years. The amount is up from the $2 billion that the New Brunswick-based company set aside in October 2021. The revised amount is being backed by more than 60,000 parties who have filed lawsuits alleging harm from J&J talcum powder, according to the company, NJ.com told readers.
Ovarian cancer, the signature disease of talcum powder when used for feminine hygiene, has only a 5% rate of survival of more than five years if the disease is diagnosed in its late stages. Johnson & Johnson's settlement offer seems to be an attempt to side step the lottery-like punitive damages awards juries were handing out in the past when informed about the company's deliberate targeting of babies and mothers with their advertising. Black women were targeted after the company discovered their talcum powder may contain asbestos, a deadly carcinogen. Some think that talcum powder inhalation by infants during diaper changes several times per day could be the cause of lung cancer, mesothelioma, and other respiratory diseases later in life. Johnson & Johnson did little to abate the risks of infants who were breathing talcum powder with their on-bottle warning label and never once mentioned the deadly disease using the product potentially caused. The company is accused of re-targeting its talcum powder marketing towards black women once asbestos was found to contaminate their talc supply early in the 1970s. Most companies that manufacture talcum powder failed to test the product for the presence of asbestos and instead relied on the talc mining company's classification of talc as cosmetics grade. It has come to light that this representation of the quality of talc had more to do with the way it was processed into fine talc versus a courser industrial grade product than it had to do with asbestos.
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