A judge dismissed an attempt to use a bankruptcy court to resolve tens of thousands of claims that the company’s talcum power products caused cancer.
A federal bankruptcy judge in Houston on Monday rejected Johnson & Johnson’s request to approve a $9 billion settlement with tens of thousands of people who are suing the company over claims that its talcum powder products caused cancer.
The proposal would have resolved nearly all current and future claims that the company’s talc products contained asbestos and caused cancer. Like the previous two efforts — in 2021 and 2023 — the deal tried to use an element of the bankruptcy system to settle the claims.
Johnson & Johnson claims that its products did not contain asbestos and that there was no proven link between its products and the cancer, the judge, Christopher Lopez, wrote in his ruling. Johnson & Johnson has long denied those claims, but has in recent years stopped selling talc-based baby powder worldwide.
Over 90,000 claims against Johnson & Johnson and other parties are pending, far too many for the courts to process individually.
The settlement attempt by the company and lawyers for the plaintiffs who brought the claims was opposed by a Department of Justice bankruptcy trustee as well as other plaintiffs’ lawyers, the judge said.
In a statement on Monday, Johnson & Johnson said, “The court has unfortunately allowed a couple of law firms with financially conflicted motives, who have conceded they have not recovered a dime for their clients in a decade of litigation, to defeat the overwhelming desire of claimants.”