J&J plans to ap­peal $18.8M ver­dict in Cal­i­for­nia ba­by pow­der can­cer case

On Tues­day a judge or­dered John­son & John­son to pay $18.8 mil­lion to a Cal­i­for­nia man who said he de­vel­oped a rare form of can­cer called mesothe­lioma af­ter longterm ex­po­sure to the big phar­ma’s talc prod­uct.

But J&J VP of lit­i­ga­tion Erik Haas said in an in­vestors call Thurs­day morn­ing that the com­pa­ny is ex­pect­ing to file an ap­peal and will con­tin­ue to de­fend the safe­ty of the prod­uct.

Haas claimed dur­ing the call that the judge on the case passed down “er­ro­neous rul­ings” that pre­vent­ed J&J’s lawyers “from shar­ing with a ju­ry crit­i­cal facts that demon­strate that plain­tiff’s ex­ceed­ing­ly rare form of mesothe­lioma was not caused by ba­by pow­der.”

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