The Lanzo v. Cyprus talc lawsuit hinged on a single scientific question: did Johnson’s Baby Powder contain asbestos, and if the microscopic mineral fragments in it were not classic asbestos fibers, could they still cause mesothelioma? A New Jersey jury said yes in April 2018 and awarded Stephen Lanzo and his wife Kendra $117 million. Three years later, a New Jersey appellate court reversed the verdict, ruling that the trial judge had let the plaintiffs’ experts testify without first testing whether their science met the state’s admissibility standard.
What Lanzo Claimed and What the Jury Found
Stephen Lanzo, a New Jersey man diagnosed with mesothelioma, sued Johnson & Johnson and its talc supplier Imerys Talc America in December 2016, along with Cyprus Amax Minerals Company, a predecessor in the talc supply chain. He alleged that decades of using Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower had exposed him to asbestos-contaminated talc, and that the companies had known about the contamination since the 1960s.
The jury agreed. It assigned 70% of the fault to Johnson & Johnson and 30% to Imerys, awarding $30 million in compensatory damages to Stephen, $7 million to Kendra, and $80 million in punitive damages split between the two defendants.1McGivney and Kluger. NJ Appellate Division Overturns $117M Talc Verdict It was one of the largest talcum powder verdicts to that point.
The Two Scientific Questions the Trial Had to Answer
Everything at trial reduced to two questions. Was there asbestos in the talc Lanzo used? And if the microscopic particles found in his body were not classic asbestos, could they cause mesothelioma anyway?
On the first question, plaintiffs’ expert William Longo tested 32 vintage containers of Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower using transmission electron microscopy. He reported tremolite asbestos in 18 of them and anthophyllite asbestos in one, and concluded that Lanzo had been exposed to “significant amounts of amphibole asbestos.”2New Jersey Courts. Lanzo v. Cyprus Amax Minerals Co., Appellate Division Opinion A second expert, Ronald Gordon, said he had found tremolite and anthophyllite asbestos fibers in Lanzo’s own lymph nodes.
The defense’s geologist, Matthew Spencer Sanchez, disputed the identification. He testified that the talc deposits in Vermont, Italy, and China where Johnson & Johnson sourced its product were not geologically suited to forming asbestiform minerals, and that what Longo had identified as asbestos was really a category of harmless mineral particles called cleavage fragments.2New Jersey Courts. Lanzo v. Cyprus Amax Minerals Co., Appellate Division Opinion
The Asbestiform vs. Nonasbestiform Fight
That defense argument set up the harder question. Even accepting that Lanzo’s tissue and the product contained mineral particles, were those particles the kind that cause disease?
Asbestos regulations distinguish between asbestiform fibers, which are long, thin, and flexible, and nonasbestiform cleavage fragments, which are shorter chunks broken off the same minerals. The two can share chemistry while differing in shape. If only true asbestiform fibers cause mesothelioma, then finding cleavage fragments in a product does not prove the product is dangerous. If the shape does not matter, plaintiffs’ cases become much easier to prove.
Plaintiffs’ causation expert Dr. Jacqueline Moline told the jury there was no meaningful medical distinction between the two when the particles were the same size and composition. James Webber, an environmental health expert, gave a similar opinion, arguing that nonasbestiform cleavage fragments with the same aerodynamic behavior as asbestos fibers could reach the lungs and produce the same disease.2New Jersey Courts. Lanzo v. Cyprus Amax Minerals Co., Appellate Division Opinion
Why the Appellate Court Threw the Science Out
On April 28, 2021, the New Jersey Appellate Division reversed the verdict and ordered separate new trials for J&J and Imerys.3MyCentralJersey. Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder Verdict Overturned by Appeals Court The central problem was the plaintiffs’ cleavage-fragment testimony.
Under the New Jersey Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in In re Accutane Litigation, which brought state practice into line with the federal Daubert framework, trial judges are supposed to act as gatekeepers, examining the methodology behind expert opinions before allowing juries to hear them.4Duane Morris. Talc Verdict Overturned, Appellate Court Finds Experts’ Opinions Lacking The appellate panel found the trial judge had never held a proper hearing on whether the theory that nonasbestiform cleavage fragments cause mesothelioma actually met that standard.
When the panel looked at the theory itself, it found little to support it. Webber conceded on cross-examination that he was not aware of any studies showing nonasbestiform cleavage fragments cause the disease. His theory, the court said, had not been tested, peer-reviewed, published, or generally accepted in the scientific community. Moline’s report, similarly, cited no specific publications backing her claim that nonasbestiform minerals could cause mesothelioma.4Duane Morris. Talc Verdict Overturned, Appellate Court Finds Experts’ Opinions Lacking
A second and separate ground for reversal was procedural: the trial judge had issued an adverse inference instruction against Imerys for destroying evidence, telling jurors they could assume the missing material would have hurt Imerys. The appellate court found this “unduly prejudicial” to J&J, which had nothing to do with Imerys’ evidence handling, and said the two defendants should have been tried separately.3MyCentralJersey. Johnson and Johnson Baby Powder Verdict Overturned by Appeals Court
How Other Courts Have Handled the Same Science
The cleavage-fragment question has not produced a single national answer. In Bader v. Johnson & Johnson (2022), a California appellate court upheld a plaintiff’s verdict where expert David Egilman testified that fibrous talc and cleavage fragments share chemical properties and surface characteristics with regulated asbestos minerals. That court distinguished Lanzo on the ground that the defense in Bader had failed to properly object at trial and had itself introduced the cleavage-fragment issue through its own experts.5FindLaw. Susan Jean Bader v. Johnson and Johnson
The same scientific theory, in other words, can be admissible in one state and inadmissible in another, depending on how each side preserves its objections and which experts are called.
What the Internal Record Showed
The plaintiffs’ science did not exist in a vacuum. A Reuters investigation uncovered internal Johnson & Johnson reports from the late 1950s identifying fibrous, needle-like tremolite as a contaminant in the company’s Italian talc. Between 1972 and 1975, at least three independent tests detected asbestos in J&J talc, with one lab describing the levels as “rather high.” In 1971, a University of Minnesota professor examined a sample of Shower to Shower and identified what he called “incontrovertible asbestos.”6Reuters. Johnson and Johnson Knew for Decades That Asbestos Lurked in Its Baby Powder
Internal documents also show J&J withheld unfavorable test results from the FDA while providing favorable ones. In a 2018 ruling connected to the Lanzo trial, Judge Ana Viscomi found this selective disclosure amounted to “a form of a misrepresentation by omission.”6Reuters. Johnson and Johnson Knew for Decades That Asbestos Lurked in Its Baby Powder
A peer-reviewed analysis in the International Journal of Occupational and Environmental Health examined 1,032 tests produced in litigation and found asbestos in 686 of them, covering cosmetic talc samples from 1948 to 2017. The same analysis criticized the industry’s standard testing method, J4-1, for having an insensitive detection threshold and for failing to test for chrysotile asbestos or fibrous talc.7PubMed Central. Cosmetic Talc as a Risk Factor for Mesothelioma
J&J has consistently maintained that its talc products are safe and that positive test results were outliers, misidentifications, or outside contamination.6Reuters. Johnson and Johnson Knew for Decades That Asbestos Lurked in Its Baby Powder The FDA’s own 2009–2010 survey of talc cosmetics detected no asbestos.8PubMed Central. Talc, Body Powder, and Ovarian Cancer
Where the Case Stands
The appellate court’s 2021 order sending the case back for new, separate trials is the last publicly reported development in the Lanzo litigation itself. Stephen P. Lanzo III died on April 24, 2026, at age 53, in Verona, New Jersey.9Montclair Local. Obituary: Stephen P. Lanzo III Available records do not establish whether a retrial ever took place or whether the case was resolved by other means before his death.
What the case did settle, at least in New Jersey, is the question of how carefully trial courts must vet talc-science testimony before it reaches a jury. The answer, after Lanzo: carefully enough to hold a real hearing on it.