By Dietrich Knauth
NEW YORK, July 27 (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson said on Monday it would pay an estimated $5.5 billion to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its baby powder and other talc products cause ovarian cancer, in a landmark deal that could end a contentious legal battle that has dogged the company for a decade.
J&J said the settlement covers about 76,000 claims, including ones consolidated in federal court in New Jersey, and related cases in state court, representing nearly all of the remaining talc claims against the company. J&J previously settled most of the cases alleging that its talc contained asbestos and caused mesothelioma.
Plaintiffs’ law firms confirmed the deal on Monday, saying it was a good resolution after a decade-long court battle. The deal must be accepted by 95% of the ovarian cancer claimants in state or federal court before it becomes final.
J&J’s vice president of litigation, Erik Haas, said the claims were “meritless” and that the company was willing to settle in order to get closure.
“While we are confident the company would have ultimately prevailed with further litigation, as it has in the vast majority of cases tried to date, this resolution allows the company to put this matter behind it and remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives,” Haas said.
J&J expects to pay $3 billion in 2027, and it will make further payments in 2028. But the deal could be worth more, depending on how many people participate in the settlement.
Chris Seeger, an attorney who represents about 2,500 clients with talc claims and helped negotiate the agreement, said J&J could ultimately pay $7 billion or more. The settlement assigns specific values to qualifying ovarian cancer claims but does not cap J&J’s total payout, he said.
“We got a fair settlement, and our clients are going to be happy with it,” Seeger said in an interview.
DEAL COMES AFTER COURTROOM WINS
J&J reached the settlement after a series of wins in court, including victories in individual trials, successful efforts to disqualify plaintiffs’ lawyers from the litigation, and court rulings against experts that plaintiffs had used to prove their cases in court.
J&J won a significant court victory in the long-running legal battle last week, when a federal judge cast doubt on individual plaintiffs’ ability to prove that talc specifically caused their ovarian cancer.
J&J has long denied that its talc products caused cancer, saying that talc was safe and did not contain asbestos. The company stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product.
The litigation resumed in March 2025, after being put on hold for more than three years while J&J unsuccessfully pursued a strategy known as the “Texas two step,” filing three bankruptcies through a shell-company subsidiary in an effort to settle the cases. Each bankruptcy ended in dismissal.
Before the bankruptcy attempts, J&J had a mixed record in talc trials, with a multibillion verdict in favor of 22 women who said baby powder caused their ovarian cancer. The company won some trials outright and had other verdicts reduced on appeal.
Unlike the proposed bankruptcy settlements, Monday’s agreement applies only to existing claims and does not address future lawsuits.
The exclusion of future claims made more money available to current plaintiffs than the bankruptcy proposal did, and it also accelerates the payments so that all claims will be paid within 18 months instead of being spread out over more than a decade, Seeger said.
(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Neil Fullick and Stephen Coates)
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