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Thousands Of Prospective Plaintiffs Turn Up After Massive Talc Verdicts In St. Louis
Aug 3, 2016 | Forbes
By John Breslin
Seventeen thousand individuals contacted a law firm in the weeks after the family of a Alabama woman was awarded $72 million by a jury, one that found Johnson & Johnson JNJ -0.76% hid information linking ovarian cancer to talcum powder. -
J&J Wants Talc Trial Moved Due To Plaintiffs' Atty Ads
Aug 2, 2016 | Law360
By Brian Amaral
Johnson & Johnsonwants the next trial over an alleged link between its talcum baby powder and ovarian cancer to take place 100 miles away from St. Louis because of plaintiffs’ attorneys “blanketing” the city and its surroundings with TV advertisements about previous blockbuster verdicts that could taint the jury pool.
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Thousands Of Prospective Plaintiffs Turn Up After Massive Talc Verdicts In St. Louis
Aug 3, 2016 | Forbes
By John Breslin
Seventeen thousand individuals contacted a law firm in the weeks after the family of a Alabama woman was awarded $72 million by a jury, one that found Johnson & Johnson JNJ -0.76% hid information linking ovarian cancer to talcum powder.
Jere Beasley and his Alabama firm, Beasley Allen, and lawyers in Missouri, already have 750 pending cases involving either individuals claiming they suffered ovarian cancer because of their use of talc, or family members of those deceased.
Of the estimated 17,000 that contacted his law offices, Beasley said his team and partners are investigating close to 12,000.
Beasley represented Jacqueline Fox , a 62-year-old from Birmingham, AL, who died while the case against Johnson & Johnson was still pending. Her son was added as a plaintiff after her death.
A jury in St. Louis awarded the family $10 million in compensatory damages, and $62 million in punitive damages, $1 million for every year of her life, a juror explained to Beasley after the three-week trial ended in February. It was much more than the legal team had asked for, or expected.
“I would have been shocked if it had been a verdict for the defendant,” Beasley told Legal Newsline. “But I was surprised at the amount and the reason for it.”
Michael Jordan, a partner with the Nexsen Pruet law firm in South Carolina who has defended companies against talcum powder lawsuits, said juries in large cities and in certain parts of the country can be very generous with awards.
“Verdicts of these sizes are not surprising in a large city where the defendant is a corporation,” said Jordan, adding that the amount ultimately transferred is often much, much smaller.
St. Louis, where many hundreds of cases against Johnson & Johnson have, or will, be filed, has a reputation as one of those cities where juries have delivered huge dollar awards, Jordan said. He cited areas of Texas, also.
But Beasley said the jury in the Fox case included medical personnel and executives.
The $72 million award was one of two recent verdicts against Johnson & Johnson after the jury found it covered up concerns over talcum powder and links to ovarian cancer.
A second trial in St. Louis ended with the plaintiff, Gloria Ristesund of South Dakota, being awarded $55 million in compensation and punitive damages.
In a third, somewhat different case, a California woman won a $13 million lawsuit in May 2015 against Colgate-Palmolive CL -1.06% after a jury determined she developed mesothelioma from asbestos in the company’s Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder.
Cases against Johnson & Johnson and other firms that used talc in their products have been filed in various part of the country, including in Louisiana, California and Florida.
Talc is a naturally occurring mineral mined in various parts of the world. Traces of asbestos have been found in the mineral, but since the 1970s companies have been aware of its dangers and made sure no trace made it to products placed on shelves, according to Jordan.
Jordan, who has successfully defended companies accused of selling asbestos-laced talcum powder and other products, said the California case was different from those in St. Louis.
In California, the claim was the product was contaminated with asbestos. In the two cases in St. Louis, it was argued the talcum powder itself caused the cancer.
Johnson & Johnson is appealing the two recent verdicts and the size of the awards.
“Multiple scientific and regulatory reviews have determined that talc is safe for use in cosmetic products and the labeling on Johnson’s Baby Powder is appropriate,” the company said in a statement following the verdict in the Ristesund case.
It also said 1,400 cases are pending against the company.
Jordan said he does not know the basis of the appeal, but that, if nothing else, the company can argue the amount of the award “shocks the conscience.”
He added, “You have ovarian cancer. It’s a terrible disease. And if you are making the choice between a sympathetic plaintiff and a corporation, there is a bias in favor of the individual.
“The question for Johnson & Johnson is that medical science has not determined whether exposure of internal organs to talc is problematic. That’s what the real question is, as there is no real medical answer.”
Between six and 10 limited studies have been carried out, and they either showed no causal link or are inconclusive, said Jordan.
The American Cancer Society said more research is needed. For any individual woman, if there is an increased risk, the overall increase is likely to very be small, the ACS notes on its website.
But Beasley said he is certain the ovarian cancer that killed his client, Fox, was caused by Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder, and that the company covered up the link between the two.
Fox’s attorneys introduced a 1997 internal memo from a Johnson & Johnson medical consultant suggesting that “anybody who denies (the) risks” between ‘hygenic’ talc use and ovarian cancer will be publicly perceived in the same light as those who denied a link between smoking cigarettes and cancer.”
“Denying the obvious in the face of all evidence to the contrary,” the consultant wrote.
Beasley believes Johnson & Johnson will, in the end, have no choice but to settle many of the cases.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/legalnewsline/2016/08/03/thousands-of-prospective-plaintiffs-turn-up-after-massive-talc-verdicts-in-st-louis/4/#7661d185435c
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J&J Wants Talc Trial Moved Due To Plaintiffs' Atty Ads
Aug 2, 2016 | Law360
By Brian Amaral
Johnson & Johnsonwants the next trial over an alleged link between its talcum baby powder and ovarian cancer to take place 100 miles away from St. Louis because of plaintiffs’ attorneys “blanketing” the city and its surroundings with TV advertisements about previous blockbuster verdicts that could taint the jury pool.
In a court filing on July 28, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. said that its experts have shown that news of a $72 million verdict in February and a $55 million verdict in May, repeated ad nauseum 30 seconds at a time by plaintiffs’ attorneys in the St. Louis area, will deprive them of a fair trial in St. Louis Circuit Court. Their analyses also claim that the purpose of the ads themselves might actually be to influence public opinion and the opinions of potential jurors, Johnson & Johnson said.
“Expert analyses have shown that St. Louis has been saturated with cosmetic talc plaintiff lawyer ads, and these ads do not convey that after decades of studies by medical experts around the world, the overwhelming body of scientific research and clinical evidence supports the safety of the product,” Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc. spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in an emailed statement. “We believe that because of these ads, our right to a fair trial in St. Louis has been compromised, and we have asked the court to move this litigation from the city.”
Johnson & Johnson is appealing both verdicts, and faces upward of 1,200 similar suits.
According to its expert, analyst Rustin Silverstein of X Ante LLC, more talcum powder litigation ads have been broadcast in St. Louis than any other American media market, Johnson & Johnson said. About 62 percent of St. Louis residents surveyed by marketing and economics professor Ernan Haruvy of the University of Texas at Dallas had been exposed to commercials linking talcum powder and ovarian cancer, the company said, with an average of nine commercials per person.
More than half of the people who said they saw ads reported that they had unfavorable opinions about talcum powder, the company said. One of the plaintiffs’ attorney ads supplied with their motion says in a banner: “Talcum Powder linked to OVARIAN CANCER.” Underneath that, in the second-largest numbers on the screen — smaller only than the firm’s phone number — is the verdict: $72 MILLION.
To one of the attorneys representing Deborah Giannecchini, the ovarian cancer patient whose case will go to trial next, the maneuver will fail, just like the last time Johnson & Johnson tried to have a related case moved.
“They would have to prove that, basically, the inhabitants of the city of St. Louis are more biased than any other city county or state in the country, which is nonsense,” said James Onder of Onder, Shelton, O'Leary & Peterson, LLC.
Onder said that the plaintiffs warned Johnson & Johnson before the first trial that a headline-grabbing verdict could lead to massive public expose, and along with it plaintiffs’ attorneys ads — even if those plaintiffs’ attorneys weren’t involved at all in the litigation. That was a good reason to resolve the issue, the plaintiffs told the company.
Johnson & Johnson also tried to have the second trial moved after the February trial and $72 million verdict, Onder said, to no avail. The second trial ended in the $55 million verdict.
Voir dire revealed that many people had seen the ads, but none of them were swayed by them, Onder said.
"They all said, no, we don’t listen to those lawyer ads," Onder said. "We know it’s a bunch of puffery."
Johnson & Johnson is represented by Beth A. Bauer and Gerard T. Noce ofHeplerBroom LLC, Gene M. Williams, Kathleen Frazier, Scott A. James and Mark C. Hegarty of Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP, and Thomas B. Weaver ofArmstrong Teasdale LLP.
The plaintiffs are represented by R. Allen Smith Jr. of The Smith Law Firm PLLC, William Wylie Blair, Stephanie Lynn Rados and James Onder of Onder, Shelton, O'Leary & Peterson LLC, Evan J. Weems and Timothy W. Porter of Porter & Malouf PA, Michelle A. Parfitt of Ashcraft & Gerel LLP, Russell T. Abney of Ferrer, Poirot, Wansbrough, Feller, Daniel & Abney, Ted G. Meadows, Danielle Mason and David Dearing of Beasley Allen, David Bonnin of the Law Offices of A. Craig Eiland, and Jere L. Beasley of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, PC.http://www.law360.com/articles/824275/j-j-wants-talc-trial-moved-due-to-plaintiffs-atty-ads
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