Dec 12 (Reuters) - A California jury on Friday awarded

$40 million to two women who said Johnson & Johnson's ( JNJ )

baby powder was to blame for their ovarian cancer.

The jury in Los Angeles Superior Court awarded $18 million

to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her

husband after finding that Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ) knew for years its

talc-based products were dangerous but failed to warn

consumers.

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

litigation, said in a statement the company plans to

"immediately appeal this verdict and expect to prevail as we

typically do with aberrant adverse verdicts."

A spokesperson for the plaintiffs did not immediately

respond to a request for comment.

Kent was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014, according to

court records. Schultz was diagnosed in 2018. Both women are

California residents who say they used J&J's baby powder after

bathing for 40 years. Their treatments for ovarian cancer have

involved major surgeries and dozens of rounds of chemotherapy,

they testified at the trial.

In closing arguments that Reuters viewed on Courtroom View

Network, Andy Birchfield, an attorney for the women, told the

jury that Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ) knew as far back as the 1960s that

its product could cause cancer.

"Absolutely they knew, they knew and they were doing

everything they could to hide it, to bury the truth about the

dangers," Birchfield said.

Allison Brown, an attorney for Johnson & Johnson ( JNJ ), said the

only people to tell Kent and Schultz that their cancers were

caused by talc were their lawyers, as the alleged connection

isn't backed by any major U.S. health authority and there is no

study that shows talc can migrate from the outside of the body

to the reproductive organs.

"They don't have the evidence in this case, and they hope

you don't mind," Brown told the jury.

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

say they were diagnosed with cancer after using its baby powder

and other talc products, according to court filings.

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.

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

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

most recently in April. The bankruptcies had put most cases on

hold. Brown and Kent's cases are the first to go to trial since

the latest Chapter 11 attempt was dismissed.

Before the bankruptcy attempts, J&J had a mixed record in

talc trials, with verdicts as high as $4.69 billion awarded to

women who said baby powder caused their ovarian cancer. The

company has won some trials outright and had other verdicts

reduced on appeal.

The majority of lawsuits involve ovarian cancer claims.

Cases alleging talc caused a rare and deadly cancer called

mesothelioma make up a smaller portion of the claims J&J is

facing. 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, including one for more than $900

million in Los Angeles in October.