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Record $417M award in lawsuit linking baby powder to cancer
Legal PR |
2017/10/07 01:36
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A Los Angeles jury on Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record $417 million to a hospitalized woman who claimed in a lawsuit that the talc in the company's iconic baby powder causes ovarian cancer when applied regularly for feminine hygiene.
The verdict in the lawsuit brought by the California woman, Eva Echeverria, marks the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuit verdicts against Johnson & Johnson in courts around the U.S.
Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers about talcum powder's potential cancer risks. She used the company's baby powder on a daily basis beginning in the 1950s until 2016 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, according to court papers.
Echeverria developed ovarian cancer as a "proximate result of the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of talcum powder," she said in her lawsuit.
Echeverria's attorney, Mark Robinson, said his client is undergoing cancer treatment while hospitalized and told him she hoped the verdict would lead Johnson & Johnson to put additional warnings on its products.
"Mrs. Echeverria is dying from this ovarian cancer and she said to me all she wanted to do was to help the other women throughout the whole country who have ovarian cancer for using Johnson & Johnson for 20 and 30 years," Robinson said.
"She really didn't want sympathy," he added. "She just wanted to get a message out to help these other women."
The jury's award included $68 million in compensatory damages and $340 million in punitive damages, Robinson said. The evidence in the case included internal documents from several decades that "showed the jury that Johnson & Johnson knew about the risks of talc and ovarian cancer," Robinson said.
"Johnson & Johnson had many warning bells over a 30 year period but failed to warn the women who were buying its product," he said.
Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement that the company will appeal the jury's decision. She says while the company sympathizes with women suffering from ovarian cancer that scientific evidence supports the safety of Johnson's baby powder.
The verdict came after a St. Louis, Missouri jury in May awarded $110.5 million to a Virginia woman who was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012.
She had blamed her illness on her use of the company's talcum powder-containing products for more than 40 years.
Besides that case, three other trials in St. Louis had similar outcomes last year — with juries awarding damages of $72 million, $70.1 million and $55 million, for a combined total of $307.6 million.
Another St. Louis jury in March rejected the claims of a Tennessee woman with ovarian and uterine cancer who blamed talcum powder for her cancers.
Two similar cases in New Jersey were thrown out by a judge who said the plaintiffs' lawyers did not presented reliable evidence linking talc to ovarian cancer.
More than 1,000 other people have filed similar lawsuits. Some who won their lawsuits won much lower amounts, illustrating how juries have wide latitude in awarding monetary damages.
Johnson & Johnson is preparing to defend itself and its baby powder at upcoming trials in the U.S., Goodrich said. |
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Court: Utility, not gov't responsible for Fukushima disaster
Attorney News |
2017/10/07 01:36
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A Japanese court has ruled that a utility, not the government, should pay compensation to dozens of former residents of Fukushima for losses to their livelihood caused by meltdowns at a nuclear plant after a massive earthquake and tsunami in 2011.
Chiba District Court ordered Tokyo Electric Power Co. on Friday to pay a total of 376 million yen ($3.4 million) to most of the 45 plaintiffs who sought compensation over the loss of their livelihoods and communities because of radiation contamination.
The court dismissed the plaintiffs' claim the government should also be held responsible for its failure to enforce tsunami safety measures.
About 30 other compensation suits filed by tens of thousands of former Fukushima residents are still pending.
The wrecked Fukushima plant's decommissioning is expected to take decades.
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Court Rules 2 Texas Congressional Districts Unconstitutional
Court Line |
2017/10/07 01:33
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A federal court nullified two of Texas’ 36 congressional districts Tuesday, unanimously ruling that they were drawn with the intent to weaken minority voting power in violation of the federal Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.
Hispanic voters in one county in the state's 27th Congressional District, which includes Corpus Christi, “were intentionally deprived of their opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice,” the three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas wrote in a 107-page ruling.
The court also called the 35th Congressional District, which includes parts of San Antonio and Austin, an “impermissible racial gerrymander.”
However, the court sided with the state with regard to other districts, ruling there was no evidence of “intentional discrimination/dilution” in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Houston or the 23rd Congressional District.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the ruling “puzzling” because “the legislature adopted the congressional map the same court itself adopted in 2012, and the Obama-era Department of Justice did not bring any claims against the map.”
“We appreciate that the panel ruled in favor of Texas on many issues in the case,” Paxton said in a statement Tuesday. “We look forward to asking the Supreme Court to decide whether Texas had discriminatory intent when relying on the district court.”
The suit was brought in 2011 by several Texas voters, Democratic and minority lawmakers along with several advocacy groups, including the NAACP, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
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Court to rule when lawyer says 'guilty,' but client objects
Court Line |
2017/10/05 01:37
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The Supreme Court will consider a case about whether it violates the Constitution when a lawyer ignores his client's instructions and concedes his guilt.
A Louisiana man was facing murder charges. His lawyer was hoping to avoid the death penalty for his client when he told jurors in his opening statement that the defendant "committed these crimes."
But here's the problem: Defendant Robert McCoy repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and objected to his lawyer's approach.
The legal strategy failed. A jury sentenced McCoy to death for killing the son, mother and step-father of his estranged wife in 2008.
McCoy's parents hired lawyer Larry English to represent their son. English failed to persuade McCoy that the evidence against him was so strong that he should accept a plea deal.
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Maryland removes Dred Scott ruling author's statue
Legal Focuses |
2017/10/04 01:34
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A statue of the U.S. Supreme Court justice who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision that upheld slavery and denied citizenship to African Americans was removed from the grounds of the Maryland State House early Friday.
The statue of Roger B. Taney was lifted away by a crane at about 2 a.m. It was lowered into a truck and driven away to storage.
The bronze statue was erected in 1872, just outside the original front door of the State House.
Three of the four voting members of the State House Trust voted by email Wednesday to move the statue. House Speaker Michael Busch, a Democrat who was one of the three who voted to remove it, wrote this week that the statue "doesn't belong" on the grounds.
His comments came after the violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, last weekend, with clashes between white nationalists and counter-protesters. A woman was killed when a car plowed into a crowd of people who were there to condemn the white nationalists, who had rallied against Charlottesville officials' decision to remove a monument to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.
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