Blog: Product Liability

Since their introduction into the American tobacco industry, cigarettes have created a substantial public health crisis. Despite efforts to help people quit smoking, tobacco is responsible for 480,000 deaths per year associated with cancers, emphysema, heart disease, and stroke. Therefore, any product that could limit the consumption of cigarettes could be considered of immense value. …

Medical and pharmaceutical manufacturing company Johnson & Johnson has made its way into the legal spotlight once again, but this time not for the defects associated with its baby powder. Earlier this week, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $8 billion in punitive damages at the conclusion of an important case surrounding the drug …

A California Superior Court judge cut $2 billion jury verdict over Bayer’s Roundup weedkiller to $86.7 million. The reduced amount will be awarded to a couple who claimed the popular glyphosate-based herbicide, originally produced by Monsanto, contributed to their non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a rare type of cancer. Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018. The jury awarded the …

Starting in August, Louisiana child seat laws will undergo some significant changes due to the implementation of Louisiana Senate Bill 76. Old Child Restraint Requirements Under previous legislation, children who were one year or younger or weighed less than twenty pounds were required to sit in a rear facing safety seat. Children between ages one …

A California jury awarded $2 billion in damages to a couple who claimed that their cancer was caused by Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. The found that Monsanto will be held responsible for $55 million in compensatory damages and an additional $2 billion in punitive damages. Pending Roundup Litigation Monsanto and its parent company Bayer AG are …

A federal jury in the United States District Court in San Francisco found that Monsanto’s popular weed killer Roundup played a role in causing a California man’s cancer. As part of the first phase in the case, the six-member jury came to a unanimous verdict that Roundup was a “substantial factor” in causing Edwin Hardeman’s …

A Philadelphia jury ordered Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon to pay $41 million as part of a product liability lawsuit involving pelvic mesh defects. The lawsuit was brought forth by plaintiff Suzanne Emmett, who began experiencing discomfort in 2007 after undergoing a Prolift pelvic mesh implant. She underwent multiple pelvic procedures using Ethicon’s vaginal mesh …

3M company agreed to pay $9.1 million in settlements to the US government for a lawsuit alleging they supplied the U.S. military with defective earplugs. The suit, which involved the second version of 3M’s “dual-ended combat arms earplugs,” was initiated by a corporate whistleblower alleging that 3M knew their CAEv2 product was too short for …

The popularly used powder, talcum, has been at the epicenter of many controversies and class action lawsuits over the past years. Talcum, commonly known as talc, is found in a host of everyday products from deodorant to baby powder. In its natural form, talcum has been shown to contain the infamous carcinogen asbestos. Since 1973, …

The latest trial assessing claims that Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder causes cancer has ended in mistrial after five days of jury deliberations. The Los Angeles jury was declared deadlocked, or unable to come to a supermajority, by a state judge. The most recent case, brought to court by a retired computer salesman Kirk Von …

A California judge has reduced Bayer AG’s Roundup Weedkiller payment of $250 million in punitive damages to $78.5 million. This decision was made to match the compensatory damages of $39 million that the jury found appropriate. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos ruled that punitive damages more than seven times larger than the …