Edited by: Who Little Peas, to Jianglin

According to reports from Check News and Red Star News, on October 7, local time, a jury in the Los Angeles County Court ruled thatJohnson must pay $96.6 billion ($68.8 billion) compensation to the family of a woman who died of interstitial malaria.The company should bear responsibility for determining that its clay powder products are carcinogenic.This is the latest verdict against the accusation that Johnson's clay powder products are carcinogenic.

May Moore, a resident of California, died of a rare interstitial tumor in 2021, aged 88. The disease is usually associated with long-term exposure to asbestos. Her family sued Johnson in the same year, accusing its baby body-cooling products of containing asbestos fibers, causing Moore to develop cancer.

According to court documents, the jury ordered Johnson to pay $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages, however, the amount could be reduced after Johnson appealed.According to the relevant ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court, punitive damages usually cannot exceed nine times the compensatory damages.

Eric Hass, Johnson¡¯s vice president of global litigation affairs, said in a statement that the company plans to appeal immediately, calling the ruling ¡°extreme and unconstitutional.¡±

Johnson reiterated that its products are "safe, asbestos-free, and will not cause cancer."The company noted that as early as 2020 it would have stopped selling baby milk-containing powder in the U.S. and switched to corn starch formulas.

The plaintiff's lawyers cited Johnson & Johnson's internal documents to refute that the company had known that its talc might contain asbestos as early as the 1970s, but did not disclose the risks to the public. Attorney Trey Branhan, who represented Moore's family, said after the verdict that his team "hopes Johnson and Johnson will ultimately accept responsibility for these tragedies that could have been avoided."

According to court documents, Johnson is currently facing more than 670,000 lawsuits, with plaintiffs all claiming to have developed cancer after using baby body relief powder and other mild powder products. Among those, only a small fraction of cases of alleged mild powder causes interstitial tumors, most of which are associated with ovarian cancer.

According to the report, Johnson has paid more than $3 billion to settle related lawsuits, but a large number of cases are still underway.Most cases are currently under joint trial at federal courts in New Jersey and are in the pre-trial exchange phase.

In the capital market, Johnson & Johnson's share price reacted relatively flat. On October 7, the company closed up 0.39%. After the market opened on October 8, the share price fluctuated slightly. As of press time, it rose slightly by 0.04%, reporting US$188.965 per share, with a total market value of US$455.1 billion.

(Responsibility Statement: Article content and data are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice.

Edited|||Peas to Jianglin.

proofreading|Dong Xingsheng

Daily economic news comprehensive look at the news, Red Star News

Daily economic news