The U.S. Supreme Court on refused to take on Johnson & Johnson’s challenge to a $2.1 billion verdict awarded in Missouri to nearly two dozen women who blamed the purported asbestos in its talcum powder for their ovarian cancer, brushing aside the company’s argument that too many claims were combined for a single trial.
Nearly seven months after the Missouri Supreme Court declined to review the matter, the high court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical giant to challenge a Missouri state appellate decision last year that kept intact about $2.1 billion of the roughly $4.7 billion original landmark verdict.
J&J had asserted, among other arguments, that the consolidation of claims from 22 women, led by named plaintiff Gail Ingham, violated its due process rights and that the Show-Me State’s trial court lacked personal jurisdiction over plaintiffs who neither lived in Missouri nor purchased or used the products there.
The Supreme Court’s decision comes nearly three years after jurors awarded a combined $550 million and $4.14 billion in compensatory and punitive damages, respectively, against J&J and its subsidiary Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. over claims their talcum powder products contained asbestos and caused the women to develop ovarian cancer.
Law360: https://www.law360.com/articles/1389717/high-court-won-t-hear-j-j-challenge-to-2-1b-talc-verdict