Dallas-based law firm Dean Omar Branham Shirley on Monday obtained a $260 million jury verdict against Johnson & Johnson for a mother who said the company’s baby powder caused her lung cancer.
A jury in Portland, Oregon, decided J&J should pay $60 million in compensatory damages and $200 million in punitive damages to Kyung Lee. Lee, a 49-year-old Oregon mother of three, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in August 2023.
“Ms. Lee was able to see justice and secure a future for her family after she is gone,” said her lawyer, Ben Adams of Dean Omar Branham Shirey.
Oregon-based Law Offices of Devin Robinson also represented Lee, who said she and her family used J&J’s baby powder for years.
Her oncologist testified over Zoom that Lee’s life expectancy is “measured in months,” Adams said in an interview with The Texas Lawbook on Tuesday.
J&J’s vice president of litigation, Erik Haas, said it would appeal the verdict, Reuters reported. He argued in a statement the jury’s verdict “is irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.”
A J&J spokesperson did not respond to The Lawbook’s interview request. J&J is facing lawsuits across the country from people who claim the company knew cancer-causing asbestos was turning up in its baby powder for decades but didn’t warn consumers or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. One such lawsuit is scheduled to begin this week in Dallas before 68th District Court Judge Martin Hoffman.
J&J was represented in the Oregon trial by lawyers from King & Spalding, Orrick and Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt.
Internal documents showed the company knew there was asbestos in the baby powder in 1958 and that asbestos caused cancer, Adams said. Those documents were the heart of the case, said Adams, who added lawyers spoke with jurors after the verdict.
Lee, who lived in South Korea the first 22 years of her life, began using the J&J baby powder when she was 12, Adams said. Her lawyers were able to show jurors the baby powder sold in South Korea during that time contained industrial talc. Jurors told lawyers after the verdict that this was an important consideration, Adams said.
“So Johnson & Johnson always advertised that they used cosmetic grade talc, but we were able to prove that they actually used industrial talc that was put into roofing materials and tire factories. They put that in the baby powder,” Adams said. “It’s written down. We have the documents that show it.”
J&J argued Lee was exposed to asbestos from a factory near a home where she lived for a year and half when she was a child. But her home was half a mile away and upwind from the factory, Adams said. Still, the defense theory posed challenges for the plaintiffs, Adams said.
“Not because their case was so compelling, but because it’s just very hard for people to wrap their mind around baby powder having asbestos in it and it’s easier to sort of believe, ‘Oh there was a nasty factory down the street,’” Adams said.
Another challenge was combating J&J’s experts, many of whom came from the highly regarded Johns Hopkins University and carried other impressive credentials, Adams said. But their published works were not about asbestos, Adams said. The plaintiffs’ team also faced a hurdle explaining to jurors that the testing J&J had conducted at other top research institutions where asbestos wasn’t found was because the company instructed the researchers to use a weak microscope that wouldn’t detect the asbestos, Adams said.
“Unraveling the sound bites and the beautiful slides and the wonderful marketing and just the Johnson & Johnson story is just incredibly difficult,” Adams said.
Lee’s lawyers asked the jury to award $37.7 million for Lee and they gave $47.7 million. Her lawyers also requested $18 million for her husband and the jury awarded him $12.3 million. The jury deliberated about five hours Monday and the trial lasted about a month and a half, Adams said.
“We’re just so grateful that the folks from Portland stayed for months at great sacrifice to themselves and that they valued Mrs. Lee’s life and that they told this company in the clearest way I could imagine, ‘Don’t ever do anything like this again,’” Adams said.
The case is Kyung H. Lee et al. v. Bi-Mart Corporation et al.,No. 23-CV-40369, in the Circuit Court of the State of Oregon for the County of Multnomah before Judge Katharine von Ter Stegge.