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LOS ANGELES, California: A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay US$966 million to the family of a California woman who died from mesothelioma, marking one of the largest verdicts yet in the long-running litigation over claims that the company’s talc products cause cancer.

The jury found the healthcare giant liable for the death of Mae Moore, who died in 2021 at age 88. Her family sued Johnson & Johnson the same year, alleging that asbestos fibers in its talc-based baby powder led to her rare cancer.

According to court filings, the panel awarded $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages late on Monday. The total award could be reduced on appeal, as U.S. Supreme Court precedent generally limits punitive damages to no more than nine times the compensatory amount.

Johnson & Johnson said it plans to appeal immediately. Erik Haas, the company’s worldwide vice president of litigation, called the verdict “egregious and unconstitutional.”

“The plaintiff lawyers in this Moore case based their arguments on ‘junk science’ that never should have been presented to the jury,” Haas said in a statement.

The company has maintained that its talc products are safe, contain no asbestos, and do not cause cancer. In 2020, J&J stopped selling its talc-based baby powder in the United States, replacing it with a cornstarch-based version. Mesothelioma has been linked to asbestos exposure.

Trey Branham, an attorney for Moore’s family, said after the verdict that his team is “hopeful that Johnson & Johnson will finally accept responsibility for these senseless deaths.”

Johnson & Johnson faces more than 67,000 lawsuits from plaintiffs who claim they developed cancer after using its baby powder and other talc-based products, according to court filings. The vast majority of the suits allege ovarian cancer, while mesothelioma cases make up a smaller share.

The company has repeatedly sought to settle the litigation through bankruptcy, a move rejected three times by U.S. federal courts. The latest proposal did not include lawsuits related to mesothelioma.

While J&J has settled some mesothelioma cases, many others have continued to trial in state courts. In the past year, the company has faced several large verdicts — with Monday’s among the biggest — though it has also won some recent cases, including one last week in South Carolina.

The company has succeeded in overturning or reducing some earlier verdicts on appeal, including one in Oregon, where a judge threw out a $260 million award and ordered a new trial.