Johnson & Johnson is under fire again: New cancer lawsuits tied to its famous baby powder have jumped 17% after the company’s latest attempt at a global settlement collapsed in court.
J&J is now facing roughly 73,570 lawsuits from consumers who claim their illnesses were caused by the company’s baby powder, according to its latest securities filings released last week. That’s a sharp rise from the 62,830 lawsuits reported in December 2024, all tied to the now-withdrawn version of the iconic product.
The surge in lawsuits is piling even more pressure on J&J over its talc-based baby powder, which the company pulled from shelves in 2023 and replaced with a cornstarch formula. The growing legal storm comes on the heels of a California jury’s verdict earlier this month, awarding $966 million to the family of a woman who blamed her cancer on decades of using the product.
The surge should push J&J leaders to make "another attempt to reach a global settlement because the morass of baby powder cases only promises to deepen and impose even greater expense,” said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond law professor and expert in product-liability cases.
J&J has consistently defended its talc-based baby powder, insisting it doesn’t cause cancer and has never contained asbestos. The company also stresses that it has marketed the product responsibly for over a century. Yet, it is standing firm, refusing to pay more than the $9 billion it offered in its previous bankruptcy settlement.
“Volume does not connote merit,” said Erik Haas, the J&J in-house lawyer leading the company’s defense in the baby powder cases. “This is an expected development following our return to the tort system.”
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Holly Froum warns that the number of baby powder lawsuits could top 93,000, with J&J potentially facing up to $11 billion to settle both current and future claims. The company has already spent over $3 billion resolving cases in which users alleged asbestos in its baby powder caused serious harm, according to Bloomberg’s data.
J&J is bracing for a fresh wave of jury trials after a Houston bankruptcy judge ruled in April that the company cannot use a subsidiary’s Chapter 11 filing to force consumers to settle claims that J&J concealed the health risks of its talc-based powders.
After three failed attempts at a bankruptcy fix, J&J has pledged to return to the regular court system to fight the baby powder lawsuits. The company faces its first ovarian-cancer trial since the bankruptcy ruling in California next month, with additional cases lined up in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Illinois, and Florida.
A federal judge in New Jersey is preparing for the first federal trial of thousands of consolidated baby powder cases, which have been held up for years due to J&J’s repeated bankruptcy filings. The trial will focus on pre-trial discovery and information exchanges, marking a significant step forward in the sprawling litigation.
A dozen state-court juries have found J&J and its Kenvue spinoff liable for causing cancer in baby powder users, handing down billions of dollars in damages. Some of those verdicts, however, were later reduced or overturned on appeal, adding another twist to the sprawling legal saga.
In 2023, J&J spun off its consumer products division—including Johnson’s baby products, Tylenol, and Aveeno—into a separate company, Kenvue Inc.
The federal litigation is officially titled In Re: Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices, and Products Liability Litigation, 16-md-2738, before the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey in Trenton.
