Baltimore Jury Orders Johnson & Johnson to Pay $1.5 Billion in Asbestos-Related Cancer Case

A Baltimore jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson, its subsidiaries, and spinoff Kenvue to pay more than $1.5 billion in damages to Cherie Craft, a woman who said decades of exposure to asbestos-contaminated talc products caused her to develop peritoneal mesothelioma. Jurors in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City found the companies liable for failing to warn that Johnson’s Baby Powder contained asbestos, marking what Craft’s attorneys described as the largest single-plaintiff verdict ever against J&J in a talc case.

The award includes $59.84 million in compensatory damages, along with $1 billion in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson and $500 million against its subsidiary Pecos River Talc. Craft was diagnosed with the rare abdominal cancer in January 2024. The verdict follows another recent loss for J&J in California earlier this month, where a jury awarded $40 million to two women who blamed the company’s baby powder for their ovarian cancer.

Johnson & Johnson said it will immediately appeal the ruling, calling it “egregious” and “patently unconstitutional,” and reiterated its long-standing position that its talc products are safe and asbestos-free. The company faces more than 67,000 similar lawsuits nationwide and has previously attempted — unsuccessfully — to resolve the litigation through bankruptcy settlements. J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020 and globally in 2023, switching to cornstarch-based alternatives, as it continues to contest claims in courts across the country.

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