Howard Erichson was quoted in a Bloomberg BNA article about a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson that claims the company’s talc products might be contaminated with asbestos.
Johnson & Johnson and a talc mining company must pay at least $37 million to an investment banker who blamed the companies’ products for causing him to develop a deadly cancer linked to asbestos.
Jurors in state court in New Brunswick, New Jersey concluded Thursday J&J and Imerys SA hid that their talc-based products, including J&J’s iconic baby powder, had been tainted by asbestos and helped cause Stephen Lanzo III’s disease. The jury will also weigh next week whether the companies’ mishandling of the talc warrants an award of punitive damages.
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Jurors in a court located less than a mile (1.6 kilometers) from J&J’s headquarters awarded Lanzo $30 million for his pain and suffering. The panel awarded Lanzo’s wife, Kendra, $7 million in damages as well. The seven-woman jury deliberated less than a day before holding the companies liable.
“J&J doesn’t want to lose any of these cases, but it really doesn’t want to lose in its home state,” Howard Erichson, a Fordham University law professor, said in an interview Thursday. “This will make New Jersey a more appealing forum for plaintiffs and will make mesothelioma patients take another look” at baby powder as the cause of their disease, Erichson added.