Johnson & Johnson Talc Lawsuit: Live Streams and Trial Updates

Johnson & Johnson talc trials are live-streamed by Courtroom View Network, a subscription platform that carries gavel-to-gavel video of the bellwether ovarian cancer and mesothelioma proceedings and archives them by session, witness, and attorney.¹ With J&J’s bankruptcy strategy dismissed in March 2025 and more than 67,600 cases now moving through federal court, streamed trials have become the main public window into how juries are weighing the claims.

Where To Watch the Trials

Courtroom View Network offers live and on-demand video of civil trials to paying subscribers. Its J&J talc archive is indexed so viewers can pull up openings, specific witness examinations, closings, or verdict readings from any covered case. Coverage is continuous during trial days, and older proceedings remain available after verdict.¹

Recent and Notable Streamed Trials

The most recent streamed bellwether was a Los Angeles County case tried before Judge Theresa Traber in the Superior Court of California, running from late April through early June 2026. Three plaintiffs alleged ovarian cancer from talc use. The jury returned a defense verdict for Johnson & Johnson on June 5, 2026. An earlier California bellwether had gone the other way, ending in December 2025 with a $40 million plaintiff verdict.²

Other trials in the CVN archive include:

Casaretto v. Johnson & Johnson, Florida, September–October 2025.
Lee v. Johnson & Johnson, Oregon 2024, which produced a $260 million verdict.
Perry v. American International Industries, South Carolina 2024, resulting in a $63.4 million verdict.
Emory Valadez v. Johnson & Johnson, 2023, the first California talc trial to proceed after the bankruptcy pause was lifted.
Ingham v. Johnson & Johnson, the 2018 Missouri trial that produced a $4.69 billion verdict for 22 plaintiffs, later reduced to $2.24 billion on appeal.³

Dozens of additional J&J talc proceedings dating back to 2018 sit in the CVN archive, spanning courts from Connecticut to South Carolina to Florida.¹

Two significant recent verdicts came outside the streamed California cases. A Baltimore jury awarded $1.56 billion in December 2025 to Cherie Craft, a 59-year-old nonprofit executive diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in January 2024. The award included $59.84 million in compensatory damages and $1.5 billion in punitive damages split between J&J and its subsidiary Pecos River Talc, and was reported as the largest single-plaintiff verdict in the litigation’s history.⁴ J&J legal chief Erik Haas called the verdict “egregious and patently unconstitutional” and said the company would appeal.⁵ In February 2026, a Philadelphia jury before Judge Sean Kennedy awarded $250,000 to the estate of Gayle Emerson in a wrongful death case, split between $50,000 compensatory and $200,000 punitive.⁶ A California judge in March 2026 cut a $966 million verdict down to $16 million in a mesothelioma case, finding that plaintiff’s counsel had not sufficiently shown the malice required to justify $950 million in punitives.⁷

What the Trials Are About

Two claims run through the litigation. The first is that genital use of J&J’s talc-based baby powder caused ovarian cancer. The second is that the talc itself was contaminated with asbestos, causing mesothelioma. Talc and asbestos occur naturally together in the earth, opening the door to contamination during mining.⁸

Plaintiffs rely heavily on internal company documents. A 2018 Reuters investigation reported that J&J knew as early as the 1970s that some baby powder tested positive for trace asbestos.⁹ A 1969 internal memo acknowledged that some talc samples contained trace asbestos and that the product could “no longer be guaranteed to be safe for babies.”¹⁰ The scientific record is contested. A 2024 study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found an association between genital talc use and ovarian cancer among frequent or long-term users across data on more than 50,000 women. A separate JAMA study of 250,000 women found no statistically significant relationship.⁸ J&J maintains its products are safe and asbestos-free, and cites a 2009–2010 FDA survey that found no asbestos in screened samples.¹¹

In March 2026, The Lancet retracted a 1977 unsigned commentary that had argued against government-mandated asbestos testing for cosmetic talc, after historians identified its author as Francis J.C. Roe, a paid J&J consultant. The journal called the undisclosed conflict a “clear breach of publishing ethics.”¹² Defense attorneys had cited the commentary in talc trials for years.¹³

Where the Federal Litigation Stands

Most U.S. cases now sit in the federal multidistrict litigation, MDL 2738, in the District of New Jersey before Judge Michael A. Shipp. As of May 2026, the MDL held more than 67,600 active cases.⁷¹⁴

In January 2026, retired Judge Freda Wolfson, serving as court-appointed special master, issued a 658-page recommendation that plaintiffs’ experts be allowed to testify that epidemiological studies show a “positive, statistically significant association” between genital talc use and ovarian cancer. The recommendation is pending before Judge Shipp, and J&J has said it will challenge the ruling on federal evidence grounds.¹⁵

In March 2026, Judge Shipp appointed mediator Fouad Kurdi to run settlement talks, requiring both sides to send representatives with “actual settlement authority.” Mediation sessions were underway as of late April 2026, with observers reporting that a deal was not imminent and that the main obstacle was “arriving at a fair number.” If mediation fails, individual ovarian cancer cases are expected to head to jury trials.¹⁶

Why Cases Are Going to Trial Instead of a Bankruptcy Trust

J&J tried three times to route the talc liability through a subsidiary bankruptcy, a strategy often called the “Texas two-step.” In October 2021, the company split its consumer subsidiary in a Texas divisional merger, dropping all talc liability into a new entity called LTL Management, which then filed Chapter 11. The Third Circuit dismissed the case in January 2023, finding LTL was not in genuine financial distress given a parent-company backstop estimated at $61.5 billion.³

A second LTL filing in April 2023, paired with a proposed $8.9 billion settlement over 25 years, was also rejected.¹⁷ A third attempt through a new subsidiary, Red River Talc, went to the Southern District of Texas. On March 31, 2025, Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Lopez dismissed that case, citing impermissible third-party releases, an infeasible plan structure, and voting-process defects, including “unreasonably short” voting windows and what the judge described as seeking “75% at any cost.”⁷ J&J declined to appeal, announced it would face plaintiffs in the regular court system, and reversed roughly $7 billion in reserves that had been set aside for the plan.¹⁸

The UK Group Claim

The litigation has crossed the Atlantic. In October 2025, more than 3,000 claimants filed a group action against Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue UK in Britain’s High Court, valued at more than £1 billion. It was the first such action against the company in the UK, brought by KP Law and covering the period from 1965 to 2023.¹⁹ Kenvue, which split from J&J in August 2023, kept responsibility for talc litigation outside the U.S. and Canada.¹⁰

By late April 2026, the claimant count had grown to more than 7,100, according to the BBC.²⁰ A High Court hearing on April 29–30, 2026, addressed whether to grant a Group Litigation Order consolidating the claims.²¹ KP Law has pushed for an expedited timetable, noting that on average one claimant has died every three days since filing. J&J is opposing the expedited schedule and denies all allegations, saying its talc met regulatory standards, did not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer. UK proceedings are not carried on Courtroom View Network, and the case is expected to take years to reach trial.

Johnson & Johnson stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. and Canada in 2020 and moved its baby powder line worldwide to cornstarch in a global phase-out announced in August 2022, describing the shift as a “commercial decision” rather than a safety concession.²²²³

1
Courtroom View Network. Johnson and Johnson Proceedings
2
Courtroom View Network. Johnson and Johnson Talcum Powder Cases Trial 2026
3
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. LTL Management LLC Bankruptcy Opinion
4
The Daily Record. Baltimore Jury Johnson and Johnson Talc Mesothelioma Verdict
5
Fierce Pharma. Baltimore Jury Orders J&J to Pay $1.5B
6
Asbestos.com. Jury Finds J&J Liable for Talc Baby Powder Linked Ovarian Cancer
7
Drugwatch. Talcum Powder Settlements
8
Ovarian Cancer Action. Talcum Powder and Ovarian Cancer
9
NBC News. Talc Baby Powder Linked to Ovarian Cancer
10
CBS News. Johnson and Johnson UK Claim Asbestos Talcum Powder Cancer
11
National Center for Biotechnology Information. Talcum Powder Litigation Review
12
Retraction Watch. Lancet Retraction Commentary Talc Powder Johnson and Johnson Industry Consultant
13
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Historians Unearth Conflict of Interest Prompting Retraction
14
U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey. Johnson and Johnson Talcum Powder Litigation
15
Fierce Pharma. J&J Talc Litigation NJ Court Recommends Allow Expert Testimony
16
Miller & Zois. Talcum Powder Lawsuits
17
Johnson & Johnson. LTL Update
18
Elevenflo. Red River Talc Bankruptcy
19
The New York Times. Johnson and Johnson Talc Lawsuit UK
20
BBC News. Johnson and Johnson Talc Claims Court Group Action UK
21
UK Judiciary. Fuschillo and Others v Johnson and Johnson and Others
22
Johnson & Johnson. Discontinuation of Talc-Based Johnsons Baby Powder in U.S. and Canada
23
BBC News. Johnson and Johnson to End Talc-Based Baby Powder Sales Globally