Baby Powder Lawsuit MDL Request Gets Hearing Date

On September 20, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will hear the arguments pertaining to an MDL motion to transfer request was originally filed by a talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuit plaintiff in July.

Tuesday, August 16, 2016 - The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPML) most recent hearing session order will include arguments for and against the consolidation of 11 Johnson & Johnson's baby powder lawsuits into a single MDL. The original motion to transfer was filed on July 15 by Tanashiska Lumas, who claimed that the common questions of fact and potentially high-volume nature of the talcum powder litigation would benefit if consolidated into an MDL. The JPML hearing session will take place in Washington D.C. and a decision on whether the litigation is transferred will come sometime in the following month.

Though only 11 lawsuits were originally named in the motion to transfer filed in July, there are currently more than 1,200 talcum powder cancer lawsuits currently pending around the country. Plaintiffs claim that Johnson & Johnson should have attached warning labels to their talcum powder products after discovering that decades of medical research had steadily built a link between their cosmetic and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.

Talcum powder lawyers representing the plaintiffs have presented internal documents proving that the health care company had been aware of the research in the 1990s, but never added the warning labels to their products. Plaintiffs claim this action led directly to many of them contracting ovarian cancer and seek to hold Johnson & Johnson responsible for the damages caused therein.

The motion to transfer talcum powder lawsuits into multidistrict litigation has not been supported by every plaintiff. There has been more than one response drafted in opposition to the idea of consolidating the litigation. These plaintiffs claim that much of the Johnson & Johnson's baby powder lawsuit proceedings going on around the country have progressed to a point that class certification will not assist in their resolution. There have also been claims that there are simply not enough talcum powder lawsuits to justify the litigation being transferred into an MDL.

However, Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder attorneys have filed a response in favor of transferring the proceedings into multidistrict litigation. With a good deal of support from the plaintiffs' side of doing the same, it is likely that the hearing session will result in an October consolidation of the lawsuits. The MDL will be able to incorporate a large number of additional talcum powder cancer lawsuits if this were to happen, and there could even be tag-along cases at the time of the certification if the lawsuits are transferred.

There are a number of legal experts that claim Johnson & Johnson may be headed for a lump sum settlement, as the first two talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuit trials of 2016 have ended up in large awards bequeathed to the plaintiffs. These awards, totalling $127 million, have set a dangerous precedent for Johnson & Johnson to continue to pursue jury trials to resolve the litigation in their favor. A potential transfer would allow for bellwether trials outside from the City of St. Louis Circuit Court, where the two 2016 trial took place, and if those resolve in a similar fashion it could be easier for the defendants to coordinate a lump sum settlement for the baby powder cancer lawsuits before a single federal judge assigned to the MDL.

Information provided by TalcumPowderCancerLawsuit.com, a website devoted to providing news about talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuits, as well as medical research and findings.