New Baby Powder Lawsuit Trial To Begin In February

The fourth talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuit to be heard before the City of St. Louis Circuit Court will begin in less than a month.

Tuesday, January 3, 2017 - The latest talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuit trial to take place before the City of St. Louis Circuit Court will begin in a matter of weeks. The trial is expected to begin in February, lose to a year after the first Johnson & Johnson's baby powder lawsuit was heard before the court. The trial will be the fourth talcum powder claim heard before the court and Judge Rex M. Burlison, and the first three ended in sizable awards for the plaintiffs involved.

The new trial will be preceded by jury selection, which is scheduled to begin on January 30. After that process is finished, the proceedings will likely take roughly two to three weeks to reach a verdict from the jury. This is more or less the time frame that the three prior trials followed, which were resolved in February, May and October of 2016.

Johnson & Johnson will be attempting to secure its first talcum powder cancer lawsuit trial victory after losing its first four bouts in court. In addition to the three trials that were heard before the City of St. Louis Circuit Court, the defendants also lost a hearing that took place in South Dakota in 2013, though no damages were assessed in that judgement. The jury in St. Louis has not been as kind to Johnson & Johnson and their talcum powder lawyers, levying nearly $200 million in damages against the company combined in the three trials heard in 2016.

There are currently more than 2,000 Johnson & Johnson's baby powder cancer lawsuits currently pending nationwide, with the St. Louis trials serving as bellwethers for the state of the proceedings throughout the country. Some legal experts have claimed that given the amount of damages given to the plaintiffs thus far, it is likely that Johnson & Johnson will eventually give in and offer a lump sum settlement to resolve the thousands of claims filed against the company.

Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder attorneys however have shown no public signs of shying away from the fight, and did get a small victory last year when a judge in New Jersey dismissed two talcum powder lawsuits after finding expert testimony inadmissible. This finding did not prevent the levying of damages against the company to the tune of roughly $70 million a month later, but it is evidence that the company may have options aside from offering a lump sum settlement going forward.

Plaintiffs have to be encouraged going forward in St. Louis however, especially given the district's record of being sympathetic to personal injury claims filed against corporations. The baby powder lawyers representing the plaintiffs have more than 20 medical studies backing their claims that regular ovarian cancer use for genital hygiene is linked to an increased risk of ovarian cancer in women. Johnson & Johnson has presented evidence that contradicts these reports, but the plaintiffs have also presented internal documents from the health care company proving they were aware of the link as early as the 1990s. Thus far, the combination of the medical studies and internal document evidence has fueled the plaintiffs to major victories in St. Louis, and they will seek to continue that trend in 2017.

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