Overview
- Cherie Craft, 54, was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in January 2024, and her lawyers said she used Johnson’s Baby Powder daily until her diagnosis.
- The Circuit Court for Baltimore City awarded $59.84 million in compensatory damages and punitive damages of $1 billion against J&J and $500 million against subsidiary Pecos River Talc.
- J&J called the ruling egregious and unconstitutional, said it will appeal immediately, and maintained that decades of studies show its talc products did not contain asbestos.
- The verdict adds to a wave of large state-court awards in talc cases as J&J faces more than 67,000 lawsuits, though many major verdicts have been reduced or overturned on appeal.
- J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the United States in 2020 and globally in 2023, switching to cornstarch-based formulations.