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J&J Talc 5/20
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Big Talcum Verdicts Stemmed from Lawyers’ Deep Data Dive
May 19, 2016 | National Law Journal
By Amanda Bronstad
When attorney Ted Meadows first heard about a 2013 verdict finding Johnson & Johnson negligent for a woman’s ovarian cancer, he “put the word out” that he wanted to start filing lawsuits over talcum powder. -
Missouri Court Enters Judgment in Talc Case that Ended in $55 Million Verdict
May 19, 2016 | Harris Martin Publishing
The Missouri court that oversaw a recent talc-based powder trial that ended in a $55 million verdict has entered judgment in the matter, noting that the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs on negligence and failure-to-warn claims, but rejected the plaintiffs’ conspiracy cause of action. -
Missouri courts need a higher standard — for justice and jobs
May 20, 2016 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Lisa A. Rickard
...Last month, a St. Louis jury heard a “star witness” testify on the link between talcum powder and ovarian cancer. -
Multi-Plaintiff Talc-Based Powder Exposure Suit Filed in Calif. State Court
May 19, 2016 | Harris Martin Publishing
A multi-plaintiff lawsuit has been filed in California state court, with the plaintiffs all alleging that they developed ovarian cancer as a result of exposure to talc-based powder products manufactured by Johnson & Johnson.
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Big Talcum Verdicts Stemmed from Lawyers’ Deep Data Dive
May 19, 2016 | National Law Journal
By Amanda Bronstad
When attorney Ted Meadows first heard about a 2013 verdict finding Johnson & Johnson negligent for a woman’s ovarian cancer, he “put the word out” that he wanted to start filing lawsuits over talcum powder. Although the jury didn’t award damages, its decision on liability caught his attention. The first person to call him was R. Allen Smith, the plaintiffs lawyer who got the verdict.
For more than 30 years, medical researchers had studied whether there was a link between talcum powder use in the genital area and ovarian cancer. The answer? It depended on whom you asked.
Meadows, who had just finished handling cases brought by women alleging the hormone replacement drug Prempro caused their breast cancer, wanted to take a closer look at the studies, which he said generally reported a 30 percent increased risk.
“Oftentimes, lawyers shy away from those types of cases because they want to see something closer to a 100 percent increased risk,” he said. But Meadows said he was able to “dig a little deeper,” examine the data behind the studies and find that when women used the product for long periods of time the risk of ovarian cancer was in the 100 to 300 percent risk range.
His digging paid off. This year, juries in two separate trials in St. Louis found that Johnson & Johnson had failed to warn its customers that using its baby powder and Shower to Shower product for feminine hygiene might cause ovarian cancer. The awards were substantial: $75 million on Feb. 22 to the family of a woman who died from the disease and $55 million to a survivor on May 2.
The awards were also big news among the plaintiffs bar. Meadows, a principal at Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles in Montgomery, and Smith, a solo practitioner in Ridgeland, Mississippi, were asked to host a plaintiffs bar conference on May 17 in Charleston, South Carolina, solely about the litigation. “I’ve been on the phone quite a bit,” Meadows said.
Johnson & Johnson’s lawyers, who have denied the company’s liability, have been quick to criticize the plaintiffs lawyers. After the latest verdict, Gene Williams, a Houston partner at Shook, Hardy & Bacon, said in an email: “The evidence presented to the jury misrepresented and distorted the science regarding talc and ovarian cancer.” Johnson & Johnson declined to comment for this story.
In a filing this month with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company estimated about 1,400 people have claims over talcum powder, most in about a dozen cases in the same Missouri state court as this year’s verdict—a venue termed plaintiff-friendly by tort reformers. (Johnson & Johnson unsuccessfully has tried to transfer or remove the talcum powder cases to federal court.) Another 140 are filed in state courts in New Jersey, where Johnson & Johnson is headquartered.
At the same time, Johnson & Johnson is defending a suit filed in 2014 by the Mississippi Attorney General. The lawsuit, also naming Valeant Pharmaceuticals, which purchased Shower to Shower in 2012, alleges that they intentionally targeted minority women by failing to warn about ovarian cancer risks on talcum powder product labels.
The company in its SEC filings said it expects the number of cases to rise. So does Meadows.
“I do think there are a lot of lawyers out there finally ready to commit and get in and prosecute cases,” Meadows said.
At both trials, Smith and Meadows were armed with more than 20 studies they claim link the genital use of talcum powder to ovarian cancer. They also told jurors about internal documents they say prove that Johnson & Johnson had been aware of the link for decades but failed to warn its customers.
“We presented an even better science case than Allen was able to put on in Berg, and a better liability case because from looking at the internal documents we have a better feel of what exactly went on over the decades,” Meadows said, referring to the 2013 trial on behalf of Deane Berg.
In the most recent trial, Johnson & Johnson lawyer Christy Jones of Butler Snow in Ridgeland, Mississippi, told the jury that the studies cited by plaintiffs lawyers showed only “weak associations” and were “at best inconsistent,” according to video coverage by Courtroom View Network. The studies were based on statistics, not clinical data, and were “just looking at the same data multiple times,” she said. Johnson & Johnson’s lawyers have cited two other studies they claim are more accurate.
In making their winning arguments, Meadows and Smith have relied much on their own expert, a Harvard Medical School professor whose 1982 study found that women had a 92 percent increased risk of getting ovarian cancer if they regularly used talcum powder. Both women in the Missouri trials, Jacqueline Fox and Gloria Ristesund, had used the products for decades.
The lawyers also had more than science up their sleeves: “One thing that gives the case its best legs is not simply the science but also the documents that go with it,” said Mark Lanier of The Lanier Law Firm in Houston, who has filed cases on behalf of 150 women. “There are some pretty damning documents at Johnson & Johnson.”
Smith told the jury in the opening statement of his second trial, according to Courtroom View Network video, that internal documents would show Johnson & Johnson knew of the potential litigation risks associated with talcum powder and “wielded corporate influence” to fight regulatory agencies. “The evidence in this case will show that the defendants put profit over human life and the human lives of women,” he said.
Jones, in the same trial, countered that several regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, have been unable to find a definitive link, according to the Courtroom video. She tried to portray the documents in a different light: Johnson & Johnson was monitoring the science, meeting with researchers and doing its own research.
In the end, juries came up with $112 million in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson.
The company has vowed to appeal both verdicts.
http://www.nationallawjournal.com/home/id=1202758155761/Big-Talcum-Verdicts-Stemmed-from-Lawyers-Deep-Data-Dive?slreturn=20160419224420
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Missouri Court Enters Judgment in Talc Case that Ended in $55 Million Verdict
May 19, 2016 | Harris Martin Publishing
The Missouri court that oversaw a recent talc-based powder trial that ended in a $55 million verdict has entered judgment in the matter, noting that the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs on negligence and failure-to-warn claims, but rejected the plaintiffs’ conspiracy cause of action.
The Missouri 22nd Judicial Circuit Court for St. Louis City entered the judgment on May 17, also recognizing that jurors found that the liability be split evenly between Johnson & Johnson and Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies.
The Missouri jury reached the verdict on May 2, HarrisMartin Publishing was the ...
For full story: http://harrismartin.com/article/20834/missouri-court-enters-judgment-in-talc-case-that-ended-in-55-million-verdict/
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Missouri courts need a higher standard — for justice and jobs
May 20, 2016 | St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Lisa A. Rickard
There are places in this world where one wants, and expects, adherence to the highest standards. From hospitals to restaurant kitchens, from banks to our children’s schools — we have the highest expectations of these institutions.
Let us add to that list, the courtroom. In the place where justice is supposed to be served, we set the bar high.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the standards for scientific studies, data, and expert testimony allowed in a court trial, the Show-Me State is one of the weakest in the nation.
But Missouri has a chance to change all of this. This session, the Legislature passed SB 591, a measure that would require Missouri courts to adopt a higher expert evidence standard known as Daubert.
The Daubert standard is the law in 40 other states and U.S. federal courts. It measures scientific expertise on common-sense factors, such as: Is the evidence being admitted in court relevant to the facts of the case at hand? Are the conclusions of a scientific study seen as reliable by scientists other than those who conducted the study? And, were the study’s findings reached using broadly accepted scientific methods?
We’ve all seen the headlines of supposedly scientific studies that turned out to be less than accurate. The controversy over whether vaccinations cause autism in children, for example, started after a single research paper was published in a British medical journal. That research, later proven to be false, was paid for by plaintiffs’ lawyers wanting to sue vaccine makers.
Last month, a St. Louis jury heard a “star witness” testify on the link between talcum powder and ovarian cancer.
Only one problem: There has never been a scientifically proven link between talc and cancer — ovarian or otherwise. The American Cancer Society has looked but found no definitive link. Two years ago, the Food and Drug Administration denied a petition to put a warning label on talcum powder because of a lack of evidence.
A connection between talc and ovarian cancer is, even in its most forward-leaning interpretation, merely a hypothesis.
But Missouri’s low standard allowed the expert to testify. The jury was persuaded. And health products company Johnson & Johnson paid $55 million to a woman claiming its product caused her ovarian cancer.
This verdict is the second against J&J this year over talc and cancer. And the star witness in both cases? The very same scientific “expert.”
But in the broader scientific community, there is doubt. And with doubt, there can be no sense of justice. And without a confidence in justice, Missouri is not a good place to do business.
This is why, in a national survey of some of the nation’s largest employers, Missouri’s judicial system ranked 42nd out of 50. Specifically on the issue of scientific and technical evidence, respondents ranked Missouri 43rd in the country.
In this survey, employers said they are less likely to build facilities or create jobs in states with weaker lawsuit systems, like Missouri.
Missourians themselves get it. In a different survey — of Missouri voters — conducted by Public Opinion Strategies last fall, 79 percent said the number of lawsuits in Missouri is a serious problem; 66 percent said Missouri’s lawsuit system benefits plaintiffs’ lawyers most, while only 6 percent said the system helps victims.
Changing Missouri’s standard of scientific evidence isn’t just good for civil justice, but wrongful criminal convictions as well, where innocent people are put in jail based on shoddy evidence.
For Gov. Jay Nixon, improving Missouri’s courts should be a simple decision. Instead, he has said he will veto the bill. Why?
We know that the governor is under tremendous pressure from the Missouri plaintiffs’ bar. They’ve lobbied hard against this bill, because heightened expert standards mean some of their high-dollar cases that hinge on questionable evidence may no longer reap a huge payout.
Gov. Nixon should set aside politics and do what is right for Missouri. For both justice and jobs, Missouri needs a higher expert evidence standard.
Lisa A. Rickard is president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform (instituteforlegalreform.com).
http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/article_b554c45a-6ce8-5b61-a5db-e13ea2f28392.html
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Multi-Plaintiff Talc-Based Powder Exposure Suit Filed in Calif. State Court
May 19, 2016 | Harris Martin Publishing
A multi-plaintiff lawsuit has been filed in California state court, with the plaintiffs all alleging that they developed ovarian cancer as a result of exposure to talc-based powder products manufactured by Johnson & Johnson.
The complaint was filed on May 18 in the California Superior Court for Los Angeles County by eight plaintiffs who said they used the defendants’ Baby Powder and Shower-to-Shower products.
Plaintiff Gloria Cervantes said that she began using the talc-based products in approximately 1975, and continued to use them daily until 2016. Cervantes was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in July 2015, and was ...
For full story: http://harrismartin.com/article/20838/multi-plaintiff-talc-based-powder-exposure-suit-filed-in-calif-state-court/
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