J&J Tries to Keep away from $30 Million in Punitive Damages in Child Powder Case

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J&J Tries to Keep away from  Million in Punitive Damages in Child Powder Case

Johnson & Johnson is balking at paying $30 million in punitive damages on high of a $15 million jury award to a Connecticut man who developed most cancers after utilizing the corporate’s talcum powder for many years.

The corporate has labeled the proposed $30 million determine as “astronomical” and claims there needs to be no punitive damages in any respect within the case or, if there should be, not more than $5 million.

In December, a Fairfield County jury ordered the corporate to pay $15 million in compensatory damages to Evan Plotkin after discovering his use of Johnson’s Child Powder considerably contributed to the event of his mesothelioma. Plotkin sued in 2021 quickly after he was recognized with the deadly illness.

Johnson & Johnson misplaced its bid to have the choose throw out the jury verdict.

The jury additionally discovered that Johnson & Johnson ought to pay extra punitive damages in an quantity determined by the choose overseeing the case. Plotkin’s legal professionals have requested the choose to approve punitive damages of $30 million, which is twice the compensatory damages and the utmost allowed underneath the state’s statutory cap on punitive damages.

“The Jury on this case discovered that J&J’s conduct was reckless, intentional, and/or malicious. J&J’s conduct was extraordinarily reprehensible — it hid and ignored the presence of potent carcinogens of their merchandise, which resulted in product customers creating an incurable, aggressive, and incurable type of most cancers,” the authorized temporary for Plotkin says.

Plotkin’s legal professionals argue {that a} punitive damages award of the utmost quantity permissible is warranted on this case and can be according to different Connecticut instances and with comparable instances in different states.

That’s not how Johnson & Johnson sees it. The corporate believes the file doesn’t help any punitive damages in any respect and definitely not “something remotely close to that determine.” Nevertheless, the corporate’s legal professionals say of their temporary, if the courtroom disagrees, it ought to “decline to subject an eight-figure punitive award towards an organization that engaged in intensive security efforts.”

As a substitute, the courtroom ought to award solely a nominal award or—at most—restrict any punitive damages award to $5 million, based on the Johnson & Johnson courtroom memorandum. It bases the $5 million on a case final month through which a jury in the identical Connecticut courtroom awarded mesothelioma plaintiffs in one other talc case $15 million in compensatory damages and the courtroom authorised $7.5 million in punitive damages. The Plotkin case warrants a good decrease determine as a result of the $7.5 million punitive damages award was divided between a decedent’s property and his partner whereas within the Plotkin case there’s solely a single, residing plaintiff, who will obtain the whole quantity, based on Johnson & Johnson.

Plotkin’s attorneys level out that the plaintiff Within the $7.5 million case was 82-years-old at loss of life in comparison with Plotkin who’s 67-years-old now and has to dwell with a deadly most cancers.

In the meantime, Johnson & Johnson is in search of to settle claims by greater than 62,000 child powder most cancers claims by means of a greater than $8 billion settlement in bankruptcy. That matter is at present earlier than a chapter choose in Texas.

Johnson & Johnson stopped promoting its talc-based powder merchandise within the U.S. in 2020.

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