Bottles of Johnson & Johnson baby powder in a line pharmacy in New York, the US. Picture: REUTERS/LUCAS JACKSON
Unlike some pharma companies, J&J isn’t known for quickly settling cases, so resolving three in close proximity may indicate executives and lawyers are looking at the talc cases differently, said Jean Eggen, a Widener University law professor who teaches about mass-tort cases. The settlements add another layer of complexity to the company’s mixed record in the talc-cancer cases it has fought across the US J&J prevailed in a New Jersey trial on Wednesday, two weeks after a jury in Oakland, California, hit it with $29m in damages. The company still faces more than 13,000 suits blaming its talc-based products for causing mesothelioma and ovarian cancer. More than two-dozen trials have been scheduled in US courts in 2019.
Sharon Pipes, the Oklahoma plaintiff, was diagnosed in 2017 with peritoneal mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the abdomen. Experts have linked that illness to asbestos exposure. She used Johnson & Johnson’s talc products for 50 years, her attorneys said at trial.