Will Johnson & Johnson Finally be Held Accountable for its Talcum Powder Causing Ovarian Cancer

Noted Trial Attorney Jason T. Brown gave an interview for AskTheLawyer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEG-0lV2K6w discussing the current status of the Talcum Powder litigation.  Mr. Brown is the head of Brown, LLC and his talcum powder law firm is aggressively litigating on behalf of individuals who exposed to Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder and then diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  His firm represents woman from all over the country and they are only paid if they win the case.

Although nothing is guaranteed, according to the analysis of Mr. Brown, he recognizes certain signature factors that point towards a potential global resolution of the Talcum litigation.  Those factors include:

• In May 2020, Johnson & Johnson pulled its baby powder product from the market.   Companies that are looking to end their liability for a product that is bad look for a date certain when their liability can end and with J & J removing the product from the stream of commerce they are now limiting future exposure.

• Johnson & Johnson has lost multiple verdicts.  Many impartial juries who heard the evidence as told by some of the best lawyers in the business on behalf of Johnson & Johnson rejected their version of events and hit them with multiple big verdicts including multi-Billion-dollar talcum powder verdicts.  One jury found the talcum powder caused cancer in 22 women.  The appellate division reduced the award to several billion, and had acidic language for Johnson & Johnson which included finding that it was proven with convincing clarity that Johnson & Johnson’s engaged in outrageous conduct and a reasonable inference was that Johnson & Johnson consciously disregarded the safety of its customers when they internally knew that baby powder was linked to ovarian cancer.   With thousands of other cases filed and thousands more unfiled, a company can not continue to do business and endure billion dollar verdicts.  The company needs finality.  

• Johnson & Johnson’s Crisis of Credibility as its cardinal defense was eviscerated.  They maintained the baby powder couldn’t cause cancer and that there was no chance the known carcinogen could enter the baby powder.  That changed when Reuters sampled lots of baby powder and found asbestos as a contaminant in it.  The FDA looked into at and found it as well.  Johnson & Johnson is facing a crisis of credibility. 

• Cases that have fallen into patterns of big verdicts with big defendant missteps have settled.  For example, the recent reported Roundup Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma settlement, the Actos Bladder Cancer Settlement, to a name a couple. 

Mr. Brown forecasts that the Ovarian Cancer – Talcum Powder litigation is following the same path of other mass tort litigation and wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of 2020 there is a global talcum powder-ovarian cancer settlement, although nothing is guaranteed.