ST. LOUIS (Legal Newsline) – A 10-figure verdict against Johnson & Johnson in an asbestos case has been reduced by an appeals court but has stayed massive, thanks to judges finding “significant reprehensibility” in the company’s conduct and deciding large companies should face higher punitive damages awards.
The court on June 23 cut a $4.7 billion verdict by more than half, but it certainly wasn’t the result hoped for by J&J as it fights claims the talc in its Baby Powder contained asbestos. The company recently pulled the product from the American market.
The 2018 verdict in St. Louis helped begin a recruiting effort by asbestos lawyers looking for clients who used Baby Powder and suffered from either ovarian cancer or mesothelioma.
“Because Defendants are large, multibillion-dollar corporations, we believe a large amount of punitive damages is necessary to have a deterrent effect in this case,” Judge Philip Hess wrote.
Texas lawyer Mark Lanier scored the verdict in trial court for 22 plaintiffs, using props like a block of cheese, a bale of hay and a bathroom scale to convince jurors to punish the corporate giant (somehow, it wasn’t the biggest verdict handed out against J&J in recent years).
The Missouri Court of Appeals reduced the amount of actual damages, then proportionally cut the amount of punitive damages.
The verdict now stands at $500 million in actual damages and $900 million against Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies Inc. and $125 million in actual damages and $715,909,091 in punitive damages against J&J.
The total verdict is around $2.2 billion.
“The punitive damages awards here, as adjusted, are significantly larger than the penalties authorized under the (Missouri Merchandising Practices Act),” the court wrote. “However, this is not dispositive in our analysis of whether the punitive damage awards against Defendants are grossly excessive.
“(W)e find the punitive damages awards assessed against Defendants, as adjusted, are not grossly excessive considering Defendants’ actions of knowingly selling products that contained asbestos to consumers.”
J&J has fought the allegations that the talc it used contained asbestos. Lawsuits have turned into a battle of expert testimony over what exactly is asbestos. Juries have been inconsistent but have walloped defendants when swayed by the plaintiffs' experts.
Lanier convinced the trial judge, Rex Burlison, to allow testimony from expert witnesses who used tests on old baby powder samples, many of them purchased from collectors on eBay, to suggest every bottle of the product contains deadly asbestos fibers.
St. Louis became a favorite venue for asbestos lawyers. In addition to the $4.7 billion verdict, juries there handed down verdicts against J&J of $55 million, $70 million and $72 million.
The company made 10 arguments on appeal, some of which centered on whether non-Missouri residents could sue it, a New Jersey-based company, in Missouri. Plaintiffs pointed to a contract J&J has with a Missouri company in the Baby Powder production process.
The out-of-state plaintiffs also alleged the Baby Powder marketing strategy was created, in part, in St. Louis.
The appeals court found some of the plaintiffs weren’t subject to the jurisdiction of St. Louis City Court, leading to the reduction in actual and punitive damages.
J&J actually won the jurisdiction argument as to all 17 out-of-state plaintiffs, but JJCI won on only two of them, which is why the new verdict holds JJCI liable for five times the actual damages it does J&J.