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Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages to a woman who claimed to have developed ovarian cancer as a result of using J&J powder products. Baby/talcum powder contains talc, a clay mineral:
Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $417m (£323.4m) to a woman who says she developed ovarian cancer after using products such as baby powder. The California jury's decision marks the largest award yet in a string of lawsuits that claim the firm did not adequately warn about cancer risks from talc-based products.
A spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson defended the products' safety. The firm plans to appeal, as it has in previous cases. "We will appeal today's verdict because we are guided by the science," Carol Goodrich, spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc, said in a statement.
The evidence around any link between talc use and cancer is inconclusive. Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in New Jersey, faces thousands of claims from women who say they developed cancer due to using the firm's products to address concerns about vaginal odour and moisture. Johnson & Johnson has lost four of five previous cases tried before juries in Missouri, which have led to more than $300m in penalties.
Previously: The Baby Powder Trials: How Courts Deal with Inconclusive Science
(Score: 5, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:39AM (8 children)
Disagree: From reading coverage elsewhere ISTM the Jury decided to Award because J&J knew about the risks, and its response was to try to cover them up. Hence the punitive damage, which is large, because J&J are large and it needs to be a big number to act as a deterrent.
As far as the damages here goes, the significant factor appears to not be the actual risk (which is disputable, but certainly not settled), but the allegation that the company involved had known about it since the 70's and not only chose not to do anything, but attempted to downplay the risks, even when they had grounds to think the risk was real. That they may turn out to have been lucky at the end of the day doesn't change the case that they were taking a gamble with other peoples lives to protect profits.
http://fortworth.legalexaminer.com/medical-devices-implants/california-talc-lawsuit-417m-verdict/ [legalexaminer.com]
and rolling back to May 2015...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-bodine/behind-the-55-million-ver_b_9833366.html, [huffingtonpost.com]
And even if you think HuffPo is a hive of scum & villany it has the following quote from a juror:
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:09AM (4 children)
Seems another case where the attempt to cover up the issue, rather than the issue itself, brought about the verdict.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:30PM (3 children)
Good. I want to live in a country where it's cheaper to be honest and open than to hid information. All our resident free marketeers should agree since a key component of a functioning free market is that consumers are enabled to make informed purchasing decisions.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
"[O]ur resident free marketers," and those everywhere else, are no such thing. They're sociopaths who want to be above consequences. 10 seconds of logical thought would show what's unworkable about their "free market" paradise, but that's apparently 10 seconds too much.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday August 24 2017, @06:41AM
They aren't even "free marketers". Those who want to selectively hide and bury information while spreading disinformation deserve a worse label. As in, propagandists and liars.
Lying is not honest marketing. It's sad that these days, marketing is very nearly synonymous with smoke and mirrors deception. It's the proverbial used car salesperson approach to selling. The fact that marketing can be honest is near forgotten. Caveat emptor.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:38PM
Good. I want to live in a country where it's cheaper to be honest and open than to hid information.
In this case the system got it right, then. It would have been way cheaper to just add a warning.
(Score: 1) by koick on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:32PM (1 child)
I have nothing wrong with large sums of punitive damage being issued to grossly negligent companies (as both punishment to the culprit and compensation to the victims). Where the system is broken is awarding this huge sum (it's truly mind boggling - we're talking about a number which approaches half a billion dollars) to a single individual rather than the company being forced to spread that amount out to compensate others who can prove the same ill health affects from using their product.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:31PM
It's a ridiculous amount of money for an individual, but for a company with a yearly revenue of (Google tells me) around 72 billion dollars then a half billion spread around the victims is actually not a significant enough sum to be a deterrent, and I'd rather see ridiculously high payouts to each victim than the company just writing this off as a cost of doing business, given it got a run of thirty years of revenue out of the decision at least.
(Score: 1) by ben_white on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:59PM
Don't try to blunt our outrage at the legal system with your long and boring screed on reason and facts. It's far to much trouble to read the links, and much more fun just to be angry! /s
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cheers, ben