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Jury awards $950 million in punitive damages

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J&J plans to appeal, calling verdict egregious

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Over 63,000 lawsuits claim J&J talc products cause cancer

(Adds J&J comment in paragraphs 4-5, plaintiffs' attorney

comment, paragraph 7, background, paragraphs 8-12)

By Diana Novak Jones

Oct 7 (Reuters) - A Los Angeles jury ordered Johnson &

Johnson ( JNJ ) to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who

died from mesothelioma, finding the company liable in the latest

trial alleging its talc products cause cancer.

The family of Mae Moore, a California resident who died at

age 88 in 2021, sued the company the same year, claiming J&J's

talc baby powder products contained asbestos fibers that caused

her rare cancer. The jury late on Monday ordered J&J to pay $16

million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive

damages, according to court filings.

The verdict could be reduced on appeal as the U.S. Supreme

Court has found that punitive damages should generally be no

more than nine times compensatory damages.

Erik Haas, Johnson & Johnson's ( JNJ ) worldwide vice president of

litigation, said in a statement that the company plans to

immediately appeal, calling the verdict "egregious and

unconstitutional."

"The plaintiff lawyers in this Moore case based their

arguments on 'junk science' that never should have been

presented to the jury," Haas said.

The company has said its products are safe, do not contain

asbestos, and do not cause cancer. J&J stopped selling

talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, switching to a

cornstarch product. Mesothelioma has been linked to asbestos

exposure.

Trey Branham, one of the attorneys representing Moore's

family, said after the verdict that his team is "hopeful that

Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ) will finally accept responsibility for these

senseless deaths."

J&J is facing lawsuits from more than 67,000 plaintiffs who

say they were diagnosed with cancer after using baby powder and

other talc products, according to court filings. The number of

lawsuits alleging talc caused mesothelioma is a small subset of

these cases, with the vast majority involving ovarian cancer

claims.

J&J has sought to resolve the litigation through bankruptcy,

a proposal that has been rejected three times by federal courts.

Lawsuits alleging talc caused mesothelioma were not part of

the last bankruptcy proposal. The company has previously settled

some of those claims but has not struck a nationwide settlement,

so many lawsuits over mesothelioma have proceeded to trial in

state courts in recent months.

In the past year, J&J has been hit with several substantial

verdicts in mesothelioma cases, but Monday's is among the

largest. The company has won some of the mesothelioma trials,

including last week in South Carolina, where a jury found J&J

not liable.

The company has been successful in reducing some of the

awards on appeal, including in one Oregon case where a state

judge granted J&J's motion to throw out a $260 million verdict

and hold a new trial.