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A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died from mesothelioma, a rare asbestos-linked cancer.
The verdict includes $950 million in punitive damages, making it the largest single-user payout in J&J’s 15-year talc litigation history.
The family of Mae Moore, who used J&J’s baby powder for nearly 80 years, alleged the company concealed asbestos risks in its talc products.
J&J has vowed to appeal, calling the ruling “egregious and unconstitutional”, and maintains that its products are safe and asbestos-free.
The company faces over 70,000 similar lawsuits in U.S. courts, most alleging that its talc powders caused ovarian cancer or mesothelioma.
A California jury has ordered multinational pharmaceutical corporation Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to pay $966 million (£760 million) to the family of a woman who died from mesothelioma, marking one of the largest verdicts yet in the company’s long-running talc litigation.
The Los Angeles Superior Court jury on October 6, 2025 found J&J liable for the death of Mae Moore, an 88-year-old California resident who died in 2021. The jury awarded $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages, after concluding that the company’s talc-based baby powder and Shower-to-Shower products contained asbestos fibres that caused her rare cancer, according to court filings cited by news agency Reuters and English daily Business Standard.
Moore’s family alleged that J&J had concealed the asbestos-related risks of its talc powders despite decades of internal evidence suggesting potential contamination. The verdict represents the largest single-user payout in the 15-year litigation surrounding J&J’s talc products, according to Bloomberg reports referenced by Business Standard.
Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice president of litigation, said the company would “immediately appeal this egregious and unconstitutional verdict”, claiming the case was based on “junk science” that should not have been presented to the jury, according to Reuters. The company has consistently denied that its talc products contain asbestos or cause cancer, stating that decades of scientific testing have confirmed their safety.
J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the United States in 2020, replacing it with a cornstarch alternative, and withdrew the product globally in 2023.
The verdict comes as J&J faces a new wave of jury trials over its talc products. More than 70,000 claims are currently pending in US courts, most consolidated before a federal judge in New Jersey for pre-trial proceedings.
The company has tried three times to resolve the litigation through bankruptcy filings — moves that have been rejected by federal courts. The vast majority of cases involve ovarian cancer claims, though a smaller subset, including the Moore case, involve mesothelioma, a rare cancer linked to asbestos exposure.
While some juries have found J&J not liable, others have awarded billions of dollars in damages—many of which were later reduced or overturned on appeal. The previous record verdict, delivered in 2018, saw 20 women collectively awarded $4.7 billion, later reduced to $2.1 billion, which J&J ultimately paid with interest.
This verdict underscores the ongoing legal and reputational crisis as it may influence the trajectory of pending cases and increase pressure on the company to reach a global settlement.
However, legal experts noted that the award could be significantly reduced on appeal, as US Supreme Court precedent generally limits punitive damages to no more than nine times compensatory damages.