J&J Faces Talcum Powder Lawsuit in UK Brought By More Than 3,000 Plaintiffs

Plaintiffs include individuals who developed mesothelioma or ovarian cancer after at least five years of Baby Powder or Shower-to-Shower use, joining tens of thousands of Americans pursuing similar claims.

While Johnson & Johnson continues to face more than 90,000 Baby Powder lawsuits and Shower-to-Shower lawsuits brought in the U.S., the company has now been named in a new complaint seeking damages for thousands of individuals in the United Kingdom diagnosed with similar cancer injuries.

The U.S. litigation has been pending more more than a decade, raising allegations that Johnson & Johnson sold talcum powder products contaminated with asbestos for decades yet refused to warn women not to use the powder on their genitals. In fact, lawsuits allege the company encouraged the practice.

Although several U.S. juries have already returned verdicts that ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay billions in damages to women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, mesothelioma and other injuries, the company continues to dispute the allegations in Court and has refused to offer fair settlements.

Rumblings about a large U.K. talcum powder lawsuit being put together began several years ago, with talcum powder lawyers in the U.K. first announcing plans to pursue a large group claim in November 2022.

That lawsuit was finally filed on October 14 in London’s High Court, representing more than 3,000 plaintiffs who allege that Johnson & Johnson sold talc products in the U.K. that it knew contained asbestos. Plaintiffs include individuals who suffered either ovarian cancer or mesothelioma after regular talcum powder use for five years or more between 1965 and 2023, when the company globally switched to using cornstarch.

That same year, Johnson & Johnson spun off its consumer health branch into a separate company called Kenvue. Both companies are named in the U.K. lawsuit. Johnson & Johnson claims that liability for the talcum powder cancer claims now lies with Kenvue.

Kenvue officials continue to claim that the talc-based products were safe and did not cause cancer.

However, the lawsuit came just days after its parent company was hit with a $966 million verdict by a California jury, following a trial over a claim that a woman died of mesothelioma in 2021 due to the presence of asbestos particles in the talc products. In addition, the company issued a massive Baby Powder recall in October 2019, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined some bottles were contaminated with chrysotile asbestos in bottles.

U.S. Talcum Powder Lawsuits

In the U.S., three separate talcum powder bellwether lawsuits are being prepared to go to trial in California. The first of the three trials will begin on November 3 and is expected to last about four weeks. It will immediately be followed by two other similar trials.

All talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuits filed at the federal level are centralized in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, where U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp is leading the litigation through pretrial proceedings in preparation for federal bellwether trials.

The first federal bellwether trial is expected to begin late this year or early next year, involving a talcum powder ovarian cancer lawsuit brought by Carter Judkins, who was diagnosed in December 2016, after using Johnson’s Baby Powder as part of her daily routine for more than 30 years.

There are also other trials scheduled for next year in New Jersey and Pennsylvania state courts.

While the outcomes of these bellwether trials will not be binding on other plaintiffs, they will be closely watched by lawyers involved in the litigation. If the parties still fail to reach a resolution after the bellwether trials, dozens of individual cases may begin moving forward simultaneously in different courts in the coming years.