A California Jury Finds Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, and Avon Products Guilty and Awards $12 Million
Strangely, no punitive damages were awarded
Friday, June 14, 2019 - A unique trial against Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, and most importantly, Avon Products, alleging that their talcum powders gave 61-year-old Patricia Schmitz, a California schoolteacher, cancer has concluded in the usual fashion. Like others before, a jury has found that Johnson's Baby Powder contains asbestos that caused a woman to develop mesothelioma a deadly cancer of the lining of the lungs. Mesothelioma is particularly insidious not only for the constant pain one suffers from every breath but also because its victims literally and slowly suffocate to death. There is no known treatment or cure for the disease. The jury awarded $12 million to the plaintiff in compensatory damages but was unable to conclude whether or not the companies acted with malice of forethought and were required to pay punitive damages. Similar cases have awarded plaintiffs at least $120 million in punitive damages. Talcum powder cancer attorneys are experienced litigators handling baby powder cancer cases and claims of individuals against large, billion dollar corporate empires.
What is unique about this case is that it included Colgate Palmolive and for the first time, Avon Product, whose talc-based cosmetics powder also contributed to her cancer. The Jury awarded damages in the amount of $4.8 million to be paid by both Johnson & Johnson and Colgate, and $2.4 million against Avon who was not a named defendant in the trial. Earlier in June 2019, a New York jury awarded Donna Olson $325 million, for Johnson's Baby Powder causing her mesothelioma. Since most cosmetics contain talc, it is feared that the entire cosmetics industry could come under considerable legal pressure if asbestos is found in women's cosmetic products.
In the past two years, Johnson & Johnson has been forced to pay billions in punitive damages by juries infuriated by the company's hubris. Eleven cases to date have been concluded against Johnson & Johnson and 4 were overturned on procedural or administrative grounds, and that may be only the tip of the iceberg. Over 12,000 people with ovarian cancer or mesothelioma have filed suit against Johnson & Johnson, now Colgate Palmolive, Avon Products and naturally the entire women's cosmetics industry appear to be in the legal crosshairs as well.
People with cancer that have used these cosmetic products on a daily basis for decades assumed they were safe and are shocked to find out that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) does not have regulatory or recall authority over the cosmetics industry and that mega-companies like Johnson & Johnson, Colgate Palmolive, Avon Products and hundreds more are basically "self-policing." In what is becoming the world's largest instance of "the fox being left in charge of the henhouse," deadly, cancer-causing asbestos is showing up every day in more and more cosmetics products that young girls and women regularly. In addition to expert witnesses testifying under oath that their tests revealed the presence of asbestos in talc, the FDA was recently alerted that independent testing labs also found asbestos in talc they sampled. This prompted the agency to conduct its own tests and came to the same conclusion. As a result, Claire's cosmetics retail chain voluntarily stopped selling the cosmetic products in question after being contacted by the FDA and shown their findings.
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