Fourth Judicial District Circuit Court for Mulnomah County, Oregon (Portland) In this matter, plaintiff Kyung Lee claimed that she developed mesothelioma from her use of Johnson & Johnson baby powder, which she alleges was...more
Court: The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division - Johnson & Johnson has successfully appealed a $223.8 judgment against it following a trial involving allegations of asbestos-contaminated talcum powder in...more
On September 27, 2021, after 18 days of trial and a mere hour of deliberations, a City of St. Louis, Missouri jury rendered a defense verdict in favor of Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”) on claims of three women diagnosed with...more
On June 1, 2021, the United States Supreme Court announced it would not accept Johnson & Johnson’s petition for certiorari seeking to overturn a $2.12 billion dollar damages award rendered in Missouri to twenty-two Missouri...more
With $2 billion on the line, the highest court in the nation has refused to hear an appeal that aimed to undo a jury award given to cancer patients and their families....more
While too many of us get overdosed with clownish depictions - from doctors, hospitals, insurers, and corporations, especially Big Pharma firms - of how the civil justice system operates, it’s always worth a reminder of the...more
New Jersey based pharmaceutical, medical and consumer goods giant Johnson & Johnson has found itself at the center of national litigation conversation over the last few years due to explosive verdicts rendered against it over...more
Credit Suisse’s CEO Tidjane Thiam is out, to be succeeded next week by longtime company vet Thomas Gottstein. Thaim appeared to have ridden out the corporate spying scandal involving a former employee last year, and he had...more
Last October, I reported on the $8 billion punitive verdict returned by a Philadelphia jury against Johnson & Johnson in a case alleging that the company had failed to warn that its antipsychotic drug Risperdal could cause...more
Recently, a Missouri Court of Appeals vacated a trial court’s award of $110 million in an ovarian cancer talc case, Slemp v. Johnson & Johnson, ED 106190 (Mo. Ct. App. Oct. 15, 2019). This is the third talc verdict handed...more
By now, you’ve probably read reports of the $8 billion punitive verdict against Johnson & Johnson in an individual case alleging failure to warn that young men using its antipsychotic drug Risperdal could develop breasts. ...more
When regular citizens get together in the civil justice system to deliberate difficult claims about complex matters, they may not get everything just right to the satisfaction of the disputing parties. But jurors’ wisdom and...more
Fed Chair Powell, speaking at an economics conference in Denver yesterday, made news by indicating that the central bank would “once again begin expanding its portfolio of government-backed securities”—a shift in policy...more
Last year, a St. Louis city jury sent shock waves across the world, awarding 22 plaintiffs nearly $5 billion in compensatory and punitive damages in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson over claims its asbestos-contaminated...more
The DOJ is considering joining its European counterparts in targeting Google for potential antitrust violations focused on Google’s “advertising practices and influence in the online advertising industry,” possibly including...more
Although lawsuits can result in needed financial support and welcome recognition of harms suffered by patients seeking medical services, the civil justice system has its limits. They showed in cases in the news in which...more
Usually, when a defendant gets a punitive award reduced to the same amount as the compensatory damages, it considers that a victory. But while such a reduction recently saved Johnson & Johnson $15 million, I don’t think that...more
The Fifth Circuit's recent opinion in Greer v. DePuy Orthopaedics, Inc. illustrates the risks inherent in bellwether multidistrict litigation (MDL) trials. MDL courts often, at great expense to the parties, use bellwether...more
We reported on a bunch of eye-popping punitive awards in 2017. There have been further developments in a number of those cases. Though we may provide more comprehensive discussions of some of those developments, here is a...more
On Tuesday, a jury entered a verdict of $27.8 million against Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Bayer AG’s Bayer Pharmaceuticals Inc. in the first state court trial out of the Philadelphia County Court of...more
They don’t call the California Superior Court in Los Angeles “The Bank” for nothing. Late last month, a jury held Johnson & Johnson liable for $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages in a case...more
Just about a week after suffering its third punitive award in pelvic-mesh litigation, Johnson & Johnson found itself on the wrong end of a $105 million punitive award—close to 20 times the $5.4 million compensatory award—in...more
As early as 1967, Judge Friendly worried about the phenomenon of punitive damages overkill in mass tort litigation. Fifty years later, the problem persists....more
In a staggering verdict, a Texas jury recently awarded over $1 billion against Johnson & Johnson (“J&J”) and its subsidiary DePuy Orthopaedics Inc. (“DePuy”) (collectively referred to as “Defendants”) to six California...more
In recent years, St. Louis has done much to earn a place on the American Tort Reform Association’s list of judicial hell holes. Not content to rest on its laurels, the St. Louis circuit court grabbed the headlines again last...more