Beasley Allen and Levin Papantonio: Leading Law Firms Seek Protection for Future Victims of Johnson & Johnson Talc Products
18 June 2024 - 7:55AM
Business Wire
Class action lawsuit demands compensation for
future talc-related injuries and medical monitoring of talcum
powder users
Plaintiffs who are at increased risk of ovarian cancer due to
long-term use of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder have filed a
class action lawsuit in New Jersey federal court seeking to hold
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and a number of corporate
subsidiaries and executives responsible for future liability and to
establish a court-supervised system to monitor the ongoing health
condition of talcum powder users.
The proposed class action alleges that the defendants had
knowledge of the presence of asbestos and other carcinogenic
substances in the company’s talcum powder products, including the
Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower brands, but chose to
suppress that evidence and failed to inform the public about the
health risks.
“It is an unconscionable tragedy that this company deliberately
chose to deny and conceal evidence of the risks of talc and insist
through its marketing that women can safely use the products,” says
Leigh O’Dell of the Beasley Allen Law Firm.
The motion requests compensatory and punitive damages, as well
as the establishment of a medical monitoring program to support the
early detection of the disease, which affects an estimated 20,000
women annually in the United States.
“By pursuing this class action, we intend to ensure that J&J
cannot abandon its responsibility, not only to women who currently
suffer from ovarian cancer due to talc, but also to all of those
future victims who are at increased risk because of the dangerous
constituent ingredients – including asbestos – that have been
present in talc for more than 50 years,” says Andy Birchfield of
Beasley Allen.
J&J recently announced the pursuit of a prepackaged
bankruptcy plan to shed responsibility for talc claims in an
unspecified federal court in Texas. Two previous bankruptcy filings
by the company have been denied by the courts in New Jersey, where
J&J is headquartered.
“The inadequate funding of this bankruptcy ploy doesn’t
realistically address the needs of women who could develop ovarian
cancer in the future because of past baby powder use,” says Chris
Tisi of Levin Papantonio Rafferty. “A key objective of this
complaint is to protect those women.”
In another class action, brought by a separate group of
plaintiffs in the same court, plaintiffs filed a motion for a
temporary restraining order and argued that the company's actions,
including the proposed third bankruptcy filing, are designed to
delay justice and reduce the funds available to compensate victims.
Those claims highlight the broader concerns expressed by
legislators and legal experts about the use of bankruptcy
protections by financially solvent companies to evade legal
responsibilities for tort claims.
Also outlined in the filing is a timeline covering more than 20
years of J&J’s deliberations about eliminating talc from the
company’s products and transitioning to cornstarch as the primary
ingredient. According to the most recent lawsuit, the company
abandoned that strategy.
On May 19, 2020, J&J announced that it would stop the sale
of all talc-based products in the United States and Canada. Two
years later, the company announced the worldwide discontinuation of
sale of all talc-based products by 2023.
In addition, today’s filing summarizes the scientific evidence
supporting an association between talc and ovarian cancer, findings
which were first published in the medical literature in 1971. Since
the first epidemiologic study on talc powder use in the female
genital area was published in 1982, dozens of other scientific
studies have shown an elevated risk for ovarian cancer associated
with genital talc use in women, as well as biologically plausible
explanations as to how genital talc use can cause ovarian
cancer.
The plaintiffs in the proposed class action are represented by a
coalition of law firms, including Anapol Weiss, Levin Papantonio
Rafferty Proctor Buchanan O’Brien Barr Mougey, Beasley Allen Crow
Methvin Portis & Miles, Ashcraft & Gerel, Burns Charest
LLP, and Levin Sedran & Berman LLP.
The motion is filed as Joni S. Bynum, et al. v LLT Management
LLC et al., No. 3:24-cv-07065 in the United States District Court
for the District of New Jersey.
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Mike Androvett 800-559-4534 mike@androvett.com
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