A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record $417 million to a hospitalized woman who claimed that the talc in the company’s iconic baby powder causes ovarian cancer when applied regularly for feminine hygiene.
The jury’s award included $68 million in compensatory damages and $340 million in punitive damages.
The verdict in the lawsuit brought by the California woman, Eva Echeverria, marks the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuit verdicts against the brand courts around the U.S.
Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers about talcum powder’s potential cancer risks.
She developed ovarian cancer as a “proximate result of the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of talcum powder,” she said in her lawsuit.
Echeverria’s attorney, Mark Robinson, said his client is undergoing cancer treatment while hospitalized and told him she hoped the verdict would lead Johnson & Johnson to put additional warnings on its products.
“Mrs. Echeverria is dying from this ovarian cancer and she said to me all she wanted to do was to help the other women throughout the whole country who have ovarian cancer for using Johnson & Johnson for 20 and 30 years,” Robinson said.
“She really didn’t want sympathy. She just wanted to get a message out to help these other women.
“The evidence in the case included internal documents from several decades that showed the jury that Johnson & Johnson knew about the risks of talc and ovarian cancer.
“Johnson & Johnson had many warning bells over a 30 year period but failed to warn the women who were buying its product”.
Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement that the company will appeal the jury’s decision.
She says while the company sympathizes with women suffering from ovarian cancer, scientific evidence supports the safety of Johnson’s baby powder.
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