Talcum Powder Lawsuits for Women Who Developed Cancer

A South Carolina jury has awarded $63.4 million to a cancer patient who filed suit against Johnson & Johnson, alleging that he developed mesothelioma after years of inhaling asbestos from the company’s talcum baby powder.

The jury determined that negligence on the part of Johnson & Johnson and co-defendant American International Industries was the proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries, making them liable for the damages incurred by the man and his spouse.

Two talcum powder mining companies have asked the Delaware bankruptcy court to greenlight a $505 million Chapter 11 settlement with Johnson & Johnson, according to court documents.

According to a July 13 joint settlement motion, Imerys Talc America Inc. and former parent Cyprus Mines Corp., which are facing personal injury claims over talc exposure and have each filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, have agreed to drop their dispute with J&J regarding the company’s contractual obligation to cover its former talc suppliers’ losses and give the mining companies a share of its insurance claims.

The proposed deal calls for J&J to pay an initial cash payment of $225 million, plus up to $280 million of the first round of insurance proceeds, the court was told. The funds will be placed into a trust to be used to resolve the talc miners’ current and future talc-related personal injury liabilities, according to court documents.

The putative settlement does not block talc claimants from suing J&J directly, the motion relays.

Importantly, the terms of the settlement, if approved, would bind any Johnson & Johnson successor to the deal should the company attempt Chapter 11 bankruptcy a third time, court documents relay.

In June 2024, U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner rejected a libel lawsuit from J&J unit LTL Management Co., which contended that Dr. Jacqueline Miriam Moline falsely stated that 33 study participants’ use of talc powder was their only exposure to asbestos that could have caused mesothelioma.

Also in June, U.S. District Judge Michael A. Shipp declined a request for a restraining order from a group of plaintiffs seeking to block Johnson & Johnson from being able to file for a third bankruptcy outside of New Jersey.

Check back with this page often for the latest Johnson & Johnson talcum powder lawsuit updates in 2024.

Johnson & Johnson announced on May 1, 2024 that it would be moving forward with a proposed $6.48 billion settlement that, if approved by claimants, would resolve tens of thousands of talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuits nationwide.

The proposed Johnson & Johnson settlement would allow the company to resolve the ovarian cancer lawsuits through a third bankruptcy filing of subsidiary LTL Management. Two previous attempts by J&J to resolve the mountain of talcum powder lawsuits it faces through a bankruptcy filing for LTL Management have been rejected by courts.

For the proposed talc cancer settlement to go into effect, at least 75 percent of plaintiffs who allege they were injured by J&J’s talcum powder products must vote to approve the deal. The voting will take place over a three-month period.

If the appropriate number of claimants consent to the talc settlement, Johnson & Johnson would resolve all current and future ovarian cancer claims it faces over its talcum powder products, which reportedly account for 99 percent of the talc-related cases filed against the pharmaceutical giant.

The proposed ovarian cancer settlement would add to J&J’s previous settlement with roughly 95 percent of consumers who sued the company after developing mesothelioma allegedly linked to asbestos exposure from talc products.

Johnson & Johnson reportedly has $11 billion in reserve for the talcum powder lawsuit settlements.

Johnson & Johnson has tentatively agreed to pay roughly $700 million to settle allegations from more than 40 states that it failed to warn consumers of the cancer risks associated with its talcum baby powder.

In an October 2023 securities filing, J&J revealed that 42 states and the District of Columbia had launched a joint investigation into the company’s talcum powder marketing. Bloomberg News, which first reported the settlement on January 8, relayed that the specific terms of the deal are still being worked out between J&J and the representatives of the state attorneys general.

Bloomberg, citing “people familiar with the deal,” wrote that the settlement would allow Johnson & Johnson to sidestep potential lawsuits from the involved states alleging the company concealed links between the talc in its baby powder products and certain types of cancer. Mississippi and New Mexico, which have already filed lawsuits against J&J, are not included in the deal and will aim to negotiate higher settlements given they have already begun litigating, according to Bloomberg’s sources.

As of January 2, 2024, there were 54,859 lawsuits pending in the multidistrict litigation (MDL) against Johnson & Johnson over the marketing of its talcum-based baby powders.

According to the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, the MDL for Johnson & Johnson talc powder cancer lawsuits contains more than 47,000 pending actions as of September 2023. The JPML determines whether civil actions pending in more than one federal judicial district should be consolidated and transferred to a single district, so as to conserve time and money and ensure similar outcomes in cases that involve large numbers of people. 

Despite the massive number of claims, the J&J talc powder MDL is only the second-largest MDL nationwide. The top spot, by a wide margin, is the MDL created to handle the litigation over 3M’s dual-ended Combat Arms ear plugs. As of September 2023, that MDL, considered the largest in history, contained more than 242,600 pending actions.

A New Jersey judge ruled that Johnson & Johnson cannot use a subsidiary’s bankruptcy case to compel thousands of cancer victims to sign off on a proposed $8.9 billion settlement, which is now in jeopardy. 

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan’s decision to reject J&J’s second bankruptcy petition marked a major loss for the company, who created a unit called LTL Management with the hope of ending all current and future injury claims related to talcum powder and other talc products. The ruling marks the second time an attempt by J&J to use LTL Management to shoulder its financial liabilities for talc powder cancer lawsuits failed, with Judge Kaplan remarking that the talc lawsuits did not put the company in immediate “financial distress.” 

The ruling from Judge Kaplan lifted a two-year stay on the talcum powder litigation, which was paused while the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and a federal appeals court deliberated on J&J’s plan to offload its massive talc liabilities onto LTL Management.

After a six-week trial, a jury decided on July 18 that Johnson & Johnson must pay $18.8 million to a 24-year-old California man who claimed to have developed cancer as a result of exposure to baby powder.  

In particular, the plaintiff, Emory Hernandez Valadez, alleged he developed mesothelioma in the tissue surrounding his heart due to “heavy exposure” to J&J talcum powder since childhood. The state court jury awarded the plaintiff compensation for his medical bills and pain and suffering. 

Although most talc powder cases were paused during J&J’s LTL Management bankruptcy proceedings, Judge Kaplan allowed this one to proceed given that the plaintiff was “expected to live for only a short time.”

On July 7, Johnson & Johnson, in another apparent legal tactic to stave off liability, sued three doctors who published a study that linked talc-based products to cancers, claiming that the scientific studies are inaccurate and calling the doctors’ findings “junk litigation opinions.” 

The lawsuit, filed by J&J subunit LTL Management, asked the New Jersey federal court to force three doctors to “retract and/or issue a correction” of a study that linked asbestos-contaminated talc items to mesothelioma. In particular, J&J alleged that at least six of the 75 mesothelioma patients cited in the doctors’ study had possibly been exposed to asbestos in ways outside of their use of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder or Shower to Shower, another talc product. 

The July case joins another from May 2023 in which J&J sued a New York doctor over similar allegations.

On April 4, Johnson & Johnson announced it had agreed to pay $8.9 billion to wrap up thousands of talc powder cancer claims. The proposed deal, which J&J has touted as the “most equitable solution” for talc claimants, was submitted as part of a reorganization plan centered on LTL Management, the subsidiary created by Johnson & Johnson to shoulder the financial liabilities for the talc litigation.

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement that 60,000 claimants at the time had already agreed to the deal, which required approval from the judge overseeing the bankruptcy proceeding. 

The terms of the Johnson & Johnson settlement, if approved, stipulated that the company would pay the $8.9 billion over a 25-year period into a trust fund from which all current and future talc claims would be paid. 

A judge would reject this reported $8.9 billion settlement in July 2023.

On August 11, 2022, Johnson & Johnson announced it would stop selling talc-based baby powder worldwide in 2023. The announcement comes roughly two years after it halted sales of the product in the United States in 2020 amid an avalanche of lawsuits and injury claims. 

“As part of a worldwide portfolio assessment, we have made the commercial decision to transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio,” the company said in a statement. “As a result of this transition, talc-based [Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder] will be discontinued globally in 2023.”

On October 14, 2021, J&J filed for bankruptcy protection for LTL Management, the subsidiary it established to handle the financial liabilities stemming from thousands of open talc cancer lawsuits.

Johnson & Johnson’s creation of a new subsidiary to shoulder its talc powder financial liabilities is a controversial legal maneuver known as a “Texas two-step bankruptcy,” whereby a subsidiary is split in two and the new entity, e.g. LTL, is used solely to hold all of a parent corporation’s debts and creditor obligations. 

The American Bar Association noted that J&J’s “Texas two-step” would have “significant implications” for the plaintiffs in tens of thousands of talc powder cancer lawsuits nationwide, as all those trials would be halted as LTL went through the bankruptcy process in court. 

In January 2023, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected J&J’s attempt to use bankruptcy to resolve the multibillion-dollar talc powder litigation, dismissing LTL’s Chapter 11 petition on the grounds that the subsidiary was created “solely to access the bankruptcy system.” The court also highlighted the fact that LTL was not in legitimate financial distress, in particular since J&J had agreed to fund the subsidiary’s liabilities for up to $61.5 billion. 

Johnson & Johnson said in March that it intends to take this loss up to the Supreme Court.

November 2020 saw a $2.11 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson stand after the Missouri Supreme Court declined to hear the drugmaker’s appeal of the ruling.

The verdict stemmed from a 2018 trial in which the claims of 22 women who alleged J&J talc powder had caused their ovarian cancer were combined. Originally, jurors ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $4.69 billion, but the Missouri Court of Appeals lowered that amount to $2.11 billion. 

In June 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear J&J’s attempt to overturn the $2.11 billion damages award.

In a first for Johnson & Johnson, the company agreed in October 2020 to pay more than $100 million to settle more than 1,000 talc powder lawsuits. Despite the settlement, the company still faces tens of thousands of cases from consumers who alleged J&J baby powder caused their cancer. 

Johnson & Johnson announced in May 2020 that it would stop selling talc-based baby powder in the United States and Canada after losing a number of legal battles and tallying billions in liabilities. The announcement came in the wake of separate investigations by Reuters and the New York Times that found that J&J knew for decades that its baby powder contained small amounts of asbestos. 

In a statement, the company said that demand for talc-based baby powder in North America “has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits” and “misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising.” 

In October 2019, the FDA announced that Johnson & Johnson was voluntarily recalling thousands of bottles of Johnson’s Baby Powder in the U.S. after testing found that a sample from one product lot contained a type of asbestos. 

In all, the affected lot of baby powder included 33,000 bottles, and consumers were advised to stop using the product and contact Johnson & Johnson for a refund.

On December 14, 2018, news outlet Reuters published an exposé that revealed, based on reviews of internal documents, that Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that its talc baby powder was contaminated with carcinogenic asbestos yet kept this information from regulators and consumers. 

According to Reuters, J&J withheld from the FDA, among other information, that “at least three tests by three different labs from 1972 to 1975 had found asbestos in its talc,” and in one instance at levels described as “rather high.” Per Reuters, internal documents and court materials showed that over the next 30 years, Johnson & Johnson’s raw talc and finished powders “sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos” and that executives and other higher-ups “fretted over the problem and how to address it,” all while failing to disclose what they knew to the public. 

On July 12, 2018, a St. Louis jury awarded $4.69 billion in damages to 22 women who alleged Johnson & Johnson’s talc baby powder, which they used as part of their daily feminine hygiene regimen, caused their ovarian cancer. 

The award included $550 million in compensatory damages and $4.14 billion in punitive damages and marked the largest-ever verdict against J&J over its Baby Powder and Shower to Shower talcum powder products. 

In its massive report that would be published later in 2018, Reuters described this verdict as a “watershed” that broadened J&J’s potential liability for talcum powder cancer diagnoses. The 22 plaintiffs, Reuters said, were the first to succeed with a claim that Baby Powder contaminated with asbestos caused ovarian cancer.

In May 2016, a jury in St. Louis awarded $55 million to a South Dakota woman who alleged her ovarian cancer was caused by Johnson & Johnson talcum powder. 

In June 2018, a Missouri appeals court threw out the $55 million verdict due to jurisdictional issues in light of a 2017 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits where companies can be sued for personal injuries.

On February 22, 2016, the family of an Alabama woman was awarded $72 million in a civil suit, with a St. Louis jury finding Johnson & Johnson liable for the deceased consumer’s ovarian cancer diagnosis. 

Per Reuters, lawyers for the plaintiff said the verdict is the first time a U.S. jury awarded damages over ovarian cancer claims linked to talc powder. 

It was in December 2009 when Johnson & Johnson was hit with the first talcum powder cancer lawsuit to make it to trial. The case was filed by Deane Berg, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota woman who developed ovarian cancer in 2006 and alleged, among other claims, that J&J failed to warn the public of the “catastrophic health hazards” associated with the use of talc baby powder. 

Although J&J reportedly offered Berg a $1.3 million confidential settlement, the woman declined. In 2013, Berg was granted a partial jury verdict win against Johnson & Johnson in court but was awarded no compensation.