“Science Favors J&J in Talcum Powder Lawsuits”

For years lawyers have been suing Johnson & Johnson claiming that its baby powder has caused ovarian cancer, a theory that has mostly met with failure in court. This summer, however, a St. Louis jury found liability and ordered the company to pay $4.69 billion, on a related theory that asbestos contaminants in the product (as opposed to talc itself) caused the disease. On December 14 Reuters followed with a lengthy piece laying out, and implicitly siding with, the plaintiff lawyers’ accusations; the piece drew wide publicity, and the company’s shares sank by about $50 billion. Some analysts have written that J&J’s lawsuit payouts on the issue could reach $20 billion.

Now a leading business columnist has explained why he doubts that outcome. “Why? Because whether or not the company’s talcum powder contains asbestos, and whether or not it hid that fact from the public, the science remains firmly on J&J’s side.” [Joe Nocera, Bloomberg] How so? “There is no evidence that women who use talcum powder are any more likely to get ovarian cancer than women who don’t. In both California and New Jersey, judges have tossed out cases on exactly this basis.” So while plaintiffs make the most of their dark imputations of a cover-up, what they haven’t shown is that women who used the baby powder are any more likely to contract cancer than those who did not. Nocera: “And this is one mass tort where I’m convinced the science is going to win.”

Meanwhile, Mark Lanier, the Texas-based lawyer who won the St. Louis verdict, freely agrees that his efforts have helped affect J&J’s stock price. “It serves my purposes as a litigator to say, ‘Yes, get their attention; keep driving the stock down.'” [Matthew J. Belvedere, CNBC] And: “New York’s specialized court for asbestos lawsuits could become a pivotal battleground for litigation over talcum powder as plaintiff lawyers seek to establish a record of wins in a court system known for liberal rules and big jury verdicts.” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]

Filed under: , , ,


“Science Favors J&J in Talcum Powder Lawsuits” curated from Overlawyered

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Commentary, Media Hits, and Events (March 5 – May 30)

Image
Here are my commentaries, media hits, and speaking engagements from March 5, 2018 through May 30, 2018. The bulk of these hits concern the CUNY protest, as well as the travel ban.   Articles Defiance and Surrender , 59 So. Texas L. Rev. (2018).   Commentary Conservative and Libertarian Lawyers in the Era of Trump , Lawfare (May 29, 2018). Dueling Cosmic Injunctions, DACA and Departmentalism , Lawfare (May 22, 2018). The Easy Way Forward on Trump v. Hawaii , Lawfare (Apr. 25, 2018). CUNY Law students heckled my talk on campus free speech , NY Daily News (Apr. 21, 2018). Students at CUNY Law Protested and Heckled My Lecture about Free Speech on Campus , National Review (Apr. 12, 2018). Testing California’s “Sanctuary Law,” Wall Street Journal (Mar. 13, 2018) (with Ilya Shapiro) ( Reproduction ). Analysis of IRAP v. Trump Part I: The Fourth Circuit’s Reliance on Pre- and Post-Inauguration Statement s, Lawfare (May 27, 2017). Analysis of IRAP v. Trump Part II: Th...
Read more

Crime and punishment roundup

Fiasco of Cliven Bundy prosecution points up that even those who break the law are entitled to a fair trial. “In the Bundy case, Judge Navarro slammed the FBI for withholding key evidence. Unfortunately, this seems to be standard procedure for the FBI.” [ James Bovard, USA Today ; Mark Joseph Stern, Slate ; earlier ] Don’t undermine structural protection Double Jeopardy Clause provides against prosecutorial overreach [ Jay Schweikert on Cato amicus brief in Currier v. Virginia] Case gives SCOTUS chance to reconsider “dual sovereignty” exception to Double Jeopardy Clause [ Ilya Shapiro on Cato certiorari brief in Gamble v. U.S.] “The room he was in happened to fall within 572 feet of a park and 872 feet of a school,” within the 1000 feet set by Tennessee law, result misery [ C.J. Ciaramella and Lauren Krisai, Reason (“Drug-free school zone laws are rarely if ever used to prosecute sales of drugs to minors. Such cases are largely a figment of our popular imagination.”)] Missed la...
Read more

Maryland toughens “cyber-bullying” law yet further

“We’re not interested in charging children or putting them in jail or fining them,” says a campaigner for Maryland’s “cyber-bullying” law, “Grace’s Law 2.0,” which is drafted to do exactly those things. “What we want to do is change the behavior so the internet is more kind,” says the same campaigner regarding the new law, which would encourage online users to turn each other in for potential 10-year prison terms over single instances of certain kinds of malicious, abusive speech, and is being billed as going farther than any other law in the country, as well as farther than the earlier Maryland law passed in 2013. Bruce DePuyt at Maryland Matters reports that Senate Judiciary Chair Bobby Zirkin (D-Baltimore County): said the 2013 law required that abusive comments be sent to the individual and be part of a pattern of conduct. With the rise of social media, that proved to be too high a hurdle, he said. Under the new law, “a single significant act can land you in trouble,” he told ...
Read more