A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $966 million to the family of Mae Moore, a California woman who died from mesothelioma, after finding that the company’s talc-based baby powder contributed to her illness.
Moore, who passed away in 2021 at the age of 88, had sued J&J the same year, claiming its baby powder contained asbestos fibers that caused her rare and deadly cancer. The jury’s verdict, delivered late Monday, included $16 million in compensatory damages and a staggering $950 million in punitive damages, according to court filings.
The award could, however, be reduced on appeal. The U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that punitive damages should generally not exceed nine times the compensatory amount.
In response, Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, called the verdict “egregious and unconstitutional,” insisting that the case was based on “junk science” and confirming that the company plans to immediately appeal.
Johnson & Johnson has repeatedly maintained that its talc products are safe, asbestos-free, and do not cause cancer. The company stopped selling its talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, replacing it with a cornstarch version. Mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer, has long been linked to asbestos exposure.
Following the verdict, Trey Branham, one of the attorneys for Moore’s family, said they are hopeful J&J will “finally accept responsibility for these senseless deaths.”
J&J currently faces over 67,000 lawsuits from people who claim they developed cancer after using the company’s talc products. While most of these cases involve ovarian cancer, a smaller number — like Moore’s — allege mesothelioma caused by asbestos contamination.
The company has repeatedly tried to resolve the lawsuits through bankruptcy, but its proposals have been rejected three times by federal courts. The mesothelioma cases were not included in J&J’s last bankruptcy plan, leaving many of them to proceed independently in state courts.
In the past year, J&J has faced several multi-million-dollar verdicts in mesothelioma cases — Monday’s being among the largest. The company has, however, also won some recent trials, including one last week in South Carolina, and successfully overturned or reduced several verdicts on appeal, such as a $260 million case in Oregon that was thrown out by a state judge.
