Cancer sufferer saves other women from using Johnson & Johnson baby powder: wins lawsuit
Johnson & Johnson will now pay a record $417 million to a hospitalised woman as per the orders of a Los Angeles jury. The women had claimed in a lawsuit that the talc in the company’s baby powder causes ovarian cancer when she applied it regularly for feminine hygiene. It is by far the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuit verdict. Eva Echeverria, California women had filed the case in court after she used the baby powder on a daily basis from 1950s to 2016. Later in 2007 she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, as per the court papers reveal. Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers about talcum powder’s potential cancer risks. Echeverria developed ovarian cancer as a “proximate result of the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of talcum powder,” she said in her lawsuit. Echeverria’s attorney, Mark Robinson, said his client is undergoing cancer treatment while hospitalised and told him she hoped the verdict would lead Johnson & Johnson to put additional warnings on its products. “Mrs. Echeverria is dying from this ovarian cancer and she said to me all she wanted to do was to help the other women throughout the whole country who have ovarian cancer for using Johnson & Johnson for 20 and 30 years,” Robinson said. “She really didn’t want sympathy,” he added. “She just wanted to get a message out to help these other women.” The jury’s award included $68 million in compensatory damages and $340 million in punitive damages, Robinson said. The evidence in the case included internal documents “showed the jury that Johnson & Johnson knew about the risks of talc over 30 years and ovarian cancer,” Robinson said. Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement that the company will appeal the jury’s decision. She says while the company sympathises with women suffering from ovarian cancer that scientific evidence supports the safety of Johnson’s baby powder. -PTC News
