Washington: The verdict was delivered on Friday by a jury in Los Angeles Superior Court, which awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. Jurors found that Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that its talc-based products posed cancer risks but failed to warn consumers.

Kent was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014, while Schultz received her diagnosis in 2018, according to court records. Both California residents testified that they used Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder daily after bathing for around 40 years. Their cancer treatments involved major surgeries and dozens of rounds of chemotherapy.

In closing arguments, plaintiffs’ attorney Andy Birchfield told the jury that Johnson & Johnson had been aware since the 1960s that talc could be linked to cancer, yet continued to market the product without adequate warnings.

Johnson & Johnson has rejected the verdict and said it will appeal. “We plan to immediately appeal this verdict and expect to prevail as we typically do with aberrant adverse verdicts,” said Erik Haas, the company’s worldwide vice president of litigation.

The company maintains that its products are safe, do not contain asbestos and do not cause cancer. Its attorney, Allison Brown, told jurors that no major U.S. health authority has concluded talc causes ovarian cancer, and argued there is no scientific evidence showing talc can migrate from outside the body to reproductive organs. Brown said the only people who told the women their cancers were caused by talc were their lawyers.

Johnson & Johnson is currently facing lawsuits from more than 67,000 plaintiffs who allege cancer diagnoses linked to its baby powder and other talc products. The company stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the United States in 2020, switching instead to a cornstarch-based formula.

The company has repeatedly attempted to resolve the litigation through a subsidiary’s bankruptcy filings, but federal courts have rejected those efforts three times, most recently in April. Those filings had paused most cases, making the Kent and Schultz trial the first to proceed since the latest Chapter 11 attempt was dismissed.

Before pursuing bankruptcy, Johnson & Johnson had a mixed record in talc-related trials. Some juries awarded damages as high as $4.69 billion, while the company won other cases outright or had verdicts reduced on appeal.

Most lawsuits involve claims that talc caused ovarian cancer, though a smaller number allege links to mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer. Johnson & Johnson has settled some mesothelioma cases, but without a nationwide agreement, many have gone to trial. In the past year, the company has faced several large mesothelioma verdicts, including one exceeding $900 million in Los Angeles last October.