SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) – A federal judge has entered judgment for Johnson & Johnson in a lawsuit that alleged its sunscreen caused a woman’s leukemia.
San Francisco federal judge Edward Chen granted the company’s motion to dismiss on May 6, more than two months after Chen wrote lawyers had failed to prove Neutrogena sunscreen was to blame for plaintiff Elizabeth Bodle’s leukemia.
Bodle’s lawyers – Courtney Gipson, James Terrell and Lawrence Papale – failed to file an amended complaint after Chen’s February ruling dismissing the case with prejudice.
Bodle’s October lawsuit says she became suspicious as to why she would develop acute myeloid leukemia 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. Some batches were found to contain varying levels of benzene, according to a citizen petition by health care products watchdog Valisure.
Bodle’s lawyers never showed she purchased or used sunscreen allegedly contaminated with benzene at a level that could plausibly allegedly cause her leukemia, Chen wrote in February. He also said she couldn’t show she was diagnosed after she used an allegedly contaminated sunscreen.
“Plaintiff is further advised that her allegations seeking as a single California-based resident to represent a putative nationwide class asserting the laws of all 50 states with regards to products she has not used or purchased is highly problematic,” Chen wrote.
“She is not likely to prevail in any motion to certify such a class…”
James Murdica and Sandra Ko of Barnes & Thornsburg represented Johnson & Johnson.