As Johnson & Johnson attempts to settle tens of thousands of talc lawsuits, a group of five plaintiffs filed new litigation on Tuesday accusing the company of efforts to “hinder, delay, and defraud” claimants.
The proposed class action lawsuit accuses J&J, its consumer health spinout Kenvue, and a handful of executives of “pursuing a strategy of repeat fraudulent transfers and serial bad faith bankruptcy filings” in an attempt to prevent plaintiffs “from ever having their day in court.”
Faced with thousands of lawsuits, J&J controversially spun its talc liabilities into a separate company in 2021, which has twice unsuccessfully sought to settle cases through bankruptcy. J&J proposed a third settlement earlier this month that would resolve ovarian cancer claims for about $6.5 billion. Those claimants have three months to vote on the plan.
The new lawsuit calls some of those plans into question. “Jury trials are what J&J fears,” the latest complaint states. “J&J has undertaken the entire scheme and artifice to defraud described herein to hinder, delay, and defraud women who are ill and dying from use of J&J’s talc products.”
J&J’s worldwide VP of litigation Erik Haas told Endpoints News in a statement Thursday that the company will “immediately move to dismiss this latest ‘hail Mary’ frivolous filing.”
“This latest filing — signed again by the same small group of plaintiffs and lawyers who have fought every single effort to resolve this litigation to date — is more of the same. The question remains: Why won’t they let claimants decide for themselves what is or is not in their own best interest?” Haas said.
Kenvue declined to comment.
Mike Papantonio, who represents the plaintiffs, said in a news release that “Johnson & Johnson is playing a dark game of chess with this country’s financial and judicial systems.” Papantonio also represents around 1,000 ovarian cancer plaintiffs.