DOORS ARE OPEN

Johnson & Johnson Can’t Use Bankruptcy to End Cancer Lawsuits, Court Rules

The company attempted to use a Chapter 11 filing to shut out some 40,000 cancer lawsuits stemming from their talc-based baby powder formula.

A three-judge panel in Philadelphia ruled Monday that consumer health product giant Johnson & Johnson can’t use a recently filed bankruptcy to quell droves of lawsuits stemming from a cancer-causing ingredient used in its baby powder line. The conglomerate had used Chapter 11 to place one of its units, LTL Management, under court protection, blocking some 40,000 lawsuits from reaching juries. But according to the court, that filing was illegitimate, citing that the corporation had never claimed to be in immediate danger financially, a prerequisite for the status. “The doors to the courthouse, which had been slammed shut by J&J’s cynical legal strategy, are once again open,” said attorney Leigh O’Dell, representing a mass tort comprised of thousands of compromised talc users, according to Bloomberg. Johnson & Johnson will challenge the ruling, the company said in a statement. The business has lost a number of past lawsuits similar to this one, including one in which they paid upwards of $2 billion to victims of the talc-based baby powder formula, even after appealing the case all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.