A Los Angeles courtroom orders the pharma big to pay damages to the household of Mae Moore, who died of mesothelioma in 2021.
Revealed On 7 Oct 2025
Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $966m to the household of a girl who died from mesothelioma, discovering the corporate liable within the newest lawsuit alleging its child powder merchandise trigger most cancers.
The courtroom in Los Angeles handed down the ruling late on Monday.
Beneficial Tales
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The pharmaceutical big has to pay the household of Mae Moore, who died in 2021. The household sued the corporate the identical 12 months, claiming Johnson & Johnson’s talc child powder merchandise contained asbestos fibres that induced her uncommon most cancers. The jury ordered the corporate to pay $16m in compensatory damages and $950m in punitive damages, based on courtroom filings.
The decision may very well be diminished on attraction as the US Supreme Courtroom has discovered that punitive damages ought to usually be not more than 9 instances compensatory damages.
Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice chairman of litigation, mentioned in a press release that the corporate plans to right away attraction, calling the decision “egregious and unconstitutional”.
“The plaintiff attorneys on this Moore case primarily based their arguments on ‘junk science’ that by no means ought to have been offered to the jury,” Haas charged.
The corporate has mentioned its merchandise are secure, don’t include asbestos and don’t trigger most cancers. This isn’t the primary time Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay damages to a household after a lawsuit that alleged a hyperlink between most cancers and its child powder merchandise.
In 2016, a Missouri courtroom ordered the corporate to pay $72m to the household of Jacqueline Fox, who died of ovarian most cancers.
In 2024, Johnson & Johnson was additionally ordered to pay $700m to settle lawsuits alleging it misled shoppers about security after an investigation introduced by 43 state attorneys basic.
J&J stopped promoting talc-based child powder within the US in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product. By 2023, it had ended talc-based child powder gross sales as nicely.
Trey Branham, one of many attorneys representing Moore’s household, mentioned after the decision that his crew is “hopeful that Johnson & Johnson will lastly settle for duty for these mindless deaths”.
Hundreds of lawsuits
J&J is going through lawsuits from greater than 67,000 plaintiffs who say they had been recognized with most cancers after utilizing its child powder and different talc merchandise, based on courtroom filings. The variety of lawsuits alleging talc induced mesothelioma is a small subset of those circumstances with the overwhelming majority involving ovarian most cancers claims.
J&J has sought to resolve the litigation by means of chapter, a proposal that has been rejected 3 times by federal courts.
Lawsuits alleging talc induced mesothelioma weren’t a part of the final chapter proposal. The corporate has beforehand settled a few of these claims however has not struck a nationwide settlement, so many lawsuits over mesothelioma have proceeded to trial in state courts in current months.
Prior to now 12 months, J&J has been hit with a number of substantial verdicts in mesothelioma circumstances, however Monday’s is among the many largest. The corporate has gained among the mesothelioma trials, together with final week in South Carolina, the place a jury discovered J&J not liable.
