Johnson & Johnson $224 million talcum powder lawsuit overturned

The New Jersey court overturned the $224 million lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, by four people that claimed the company’s talcum powder caused them to get cancer.

Four plaintiffs who claimed in a lawsuit that they contracted cancer after using Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder products had their almost $224 million judgment against the business overturned by a New Jersey court.

The three-judge appeals panel mandated a fresh trial after finding that the plaintiffs' experts' testimony in a lower court was unreliable. J&J was ordered to pay $37.3 million in restitution to New Jersey citizens William Ronning, Douglas Barden, David Etheridge, and D'Angela McNeill-George in addition to $186.5 million in punitive damages in 2019.

The business appealed the verdict the following year, claiming that William Longo, Jacqueline Moline, and James Webber, the three experts called to testify during the trial, gave inaccurate or incomplete testimony.

Prior to the J&J trial, Longo did not exactly ascertain how frequently the plaintiffs had used the powder, and Moline never came to the conclusion that using J&J's talc caused cancer, according to J&J's attorneys. J&J further asserted that Webber testified that specific minerals present in the baby powder, known as cleavage fragments, have the potential to cause cancer. However, Webber based this assertion on an out-of-date 1980 study that required more recent analysis.

The company's claim that the lower court erred in allowing the testimony of the three experts, which should have been rejected by the appeals court, was accepted.