SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – Johnson & Johnson is arguing a woman suffering from leukemia fails to make class action claims over its Neutrogena sunscreen.
The company on Dec. 20 filed a motion to dismiss Elizabeth Bodle’s lawsuit, calling its theory – a class action seeking recovery for alleged personal injuries – “nearly universally rejected.”
“Fundamentally, this action is nothing more than an improper attempt to convert Plaintiff’s individual claim for her own alleged personal injuries into a class action – even though the putative class members experienced no injury,” the motion says.
“While plaintiff claims that she developed acute myeloid leukemia allegedly resulting from her sunscreen use, she does not identify any actual injuries experienced by the putative class beyond broad assertions of ‘harm,’ ‘personal injuries’ and ‘other forms of cancer.”
Bodle’s October lawsuit says she because suspicious as to why she would develop AML in her early 50s. Through online research, she learned of benzene’s presence in a large number of popular sunscreens, the suit says.
Bodle uses Neutrogena sunscreen, which was subject to a nationwide recall, the suit says. She is represented by Lawrence Papale.
James Murdica and Sandra Ko of Barnes & Thornsburg filed the motion to dismiss for Johnson & Johnson. They say Bodle, a California resident, can’t represent class members whose claims fall under state laws and also can’t represent a nationwide class.
Bodle hasn’t even adequately alleged she purchased a contaminated sunscreen, the motion says.
“Instead, Plaintiff’s allegations amount to nothing more than mere conjecture that, because she purchased a single Neutrogena sunscreen product at some unspecified time, and some bathes of some Neutrogena sunscreen products were allegedly found to contain varying levels of benzene according to Valisure’s citizen petition, Plaintiff might have purchased sunscreen with benzene,” the motion says.
“This supposition does not, however, satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement because it fails to affirmatively allege an injury from those products to Plaintiff, and it would be mere conjecture to find that a Neutrogena sunscreen product was the cause of Plaintiff’s AML, particularly where Plaintiff admits that the sunscreen products only ‘may’ contain benzene but does not allege any facts to demonstrate actual exposure to benzene.”