Talcum Powder Lawsuit: Verdicts, MDL Status, and Who Can File

A talcum powder lawsuit is a product liability claim alleging that talc-based products, most prominently Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower, were contaminated with asbestos and caused the user’s ovarian cancer or mesothelioma. As of mid-2026, roughly 68,000 cases are pending in a single federal court in New Jersey, making this the largest active mass tort in the United States. Billion-dollar verdicts have landed in 2025 and 2026, Johnson & Johnson’s three attempts to resolve the claims through bankruptcy have all failed, and the company says it does not intend to offer any settlements at this time.

What the Lawsuits Allege

Plaintiffs make two connected claims. The talc mined for consumer powders was naturally contaminated with asbestos, a known carcinogen. And Johnson & Johnson knew for decades and concealed it.

A 2018 Reuters investigation of internal J&J documents from the 1950s through the 2000s found repeated positive asbestos results in the company’s talc supply, including one 1970s report characterizing the levels as “rather high.”¹ A peer-reviewed analysis of litigation documents later found that 686 of 1,032 tests conducted between 1948 and 2017 detected asbestos in cosmetic talcs.² Plaintiffs also point to evidence that J&J told the FDA in 1976 that no asbestos had been detected in 1972-1973 samples while omitting earlier positive findings. A New Jersey judge in 2018 ruled that conduct amounted to “misrepresentation by omission.”

J&J denies the allegations. The company says its talc products are safe, contain no asbestos, and do not cause cancer, and it attributes positive findings to flawed testing methods.³

On the science, the link between asbestos and mesothelioma is well established, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies talc containing asbestos as “carcinogenic to humans.”⁴ The ovarian cancer link is more debated, but a 2024 National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences study of over 50,000 women found a “persistent positive association” between genital talc use and ovarian cancer.⁵ In January 2026, a special master in the federal MDL issued a 658-page recommendation permitting plaintiffs’ experts to testify about that statistical link, rejecting J&J’s attempts to bar the testimony.⁶

Who Can File a Claim

Claims focus on two diagnoses: ovarian cancer, typically linked to long-term genital application of talc-based products, and mesothelioma, linked to inhaling or otherwise being exposed to asbestos-contaminated talc. To pursue a claim, you generally need a documented medical diagnosis, a history of regular use of talc-containing products, and evidence connecting the product to the illness.

Filing deadlines vary by state. Statutes of limitations run from the date of diagnosis and range from two years in states like California, Illinois, and Texas to four years in Florida. If a person has died from a qualifying illness, surviving family members or estate representatives may be able to file a wrongful death claim, though the rules vary by state.

A new claim can be filed either as part of the federal MDL, which consolidates pretrial proceedings, or as an individual lawsuit in state court. Discontinuation is not a bar: J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. and Canada in 2020 and worldwide beginning in 2023, but the claims involve exposure that occurred over years or decades before the product left shelves.⁷

Where the Cases Stand

The vast majority of federal talc cases are consolidated in In re Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation, MDL No. 2738, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. Judge Michael A. Shipp has presided since October 2016.⁸ Roughly 68,000 individual lawsuits are pending there.⁹

Plaintiffs’ attorneys have selected Carter Judkins v. Johnson & Johnson et al. as the first federal bellwether. Judkins is a New Hampshire woman who alleges her ovarian cancer was caused by decades of using J&J’s talc products, and the trial is expected to begin in the coming months.⁹ Individual trials also continue in state courts, most actively in California, Maryland, and elsewhere, where some of the largest verdicts have been returned. Court-appointed mediator Fouad Kurdi continues to oversee settlement talks in the MDL, with both sides required to participate through representatives with full settlement authority.¹⁰

Why There Is No Global Settlement

J&J tried three times to resolve all talc claims through bankruptcy using the “Texas Two-Step”: creating a subsidiary, transferring the talc liabilities to it, and placing that subsidiary in Chapter 11 despite the parent company’s financial health.

The first attempt, in 2021, used a subsidiary called LTL Management and offered roughly $2 billion to resolve about 38,000 lawsuits. The Third Circuit dismissed the bankruptcy in January 2023 on the ground that LTL was not in genuine financial distress, and the Supreme Court declined to hear J&J’s appeal.¹¹ J&J tried again through a successor subsidiary, Red River Talc, proposing settlement funds ranging from roughly $6.5 billion to $8.9 billion. A Houston bankruptcy judge rejected the third and final attempt in early 2025, citing voting irregularities and concerns about nonconsensual liability releases for third parties.¹² The bankruptcy judge found that thousands of claimants had insufficient time to vote and that the company appeared to be seeking approval “at any cost.”

With the bankruptcy strategy exhausted, J&J has pivoted to defending cases individually and has stated it does not intend to offer any settlements at this time.⁹

Recent Verdicts

Since the collapse of the bankruptcy strategy, trials have accelerated. Outcomes are uneven but include some of the largest product liability awards on record.

$1.5 Billion in Baltimore, December 2025

A Baltimore City jury awarded over $1.5 billion to Cherie Craft, the largest verdict against J&J for a single plaintiff. Craft had used Johnson’s Baby Powder daily before being diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma in January 2024. The jury found J&J, two subsidiaries, and spinoff Kenvue liable for failing to warn that the product contained asbestos. Damages included $59.84 million in compensatory damages, $1 billion in punitive damages against J&J, and $500 million against subsidiary Pecos River Talc.¹³ J&J’s head of litigation, Erik Haas, called the verdict “egregious and patently unconstitutional” and said the company would immediately appeal.³

$966 Million in Los Angeles, October 2025

A Los Angeles jury awarded $966 million to the family of Mae Moore, diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2020 and died the following year at age 88. The award included $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages after the jury found “clear and convincing evidence” that J&J acted with “malice, oppression or fraud.”¹⁴ Co-defendants Avon, Chanel, Colgate-Palmolive, and Revlon were cleared.¹⁵

$4.69 Billion in Missouri, 2018

The largest talc verdict on record came in 2018, when a St. Louis jury awarded $4.69 billion to 22 women alleging J&J’s talc products caused their ovarian cancer. A Missouri appeals court upheld the underlying findings but reduced the total to roughly $2.1 billion in 2020, ruling that 17 of the 22 plaintiffs lacked sufficient ties to Missouri. The appellate court described J&J’s conduct as “outrageous” and driven by “evil motive or reckless indifference.”¹⁶

Other 2025-2026 Awards

$40 million (December 2025): A California bellwether awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $13.5 million to Deborah Schultz, both diagnosed with ovarian cancer, plus $8.5 million in loss of consortium damages. The jury found that J&J concealed health risks for over 50 years.¹⁷
$32 million (June 2026): A Los Angeles jury awarded compensatory damages to the family of Maria Lozano, who died of mesothelioma. Former FDA Commissioner David Kessler testified that internal company documents from the 1950s and 1970s repeatedly identified asbestos in talc but were never disclosed to regulators.¹²
$10.2 million (May 2026): A Minnesota jury found five companies — J&J, Vi-Jon, Gold Bond, Merck, and Perrigo — liable for the mesothelioma of Daniel Heyer, a 43-year-old man who used various talc-based body powders throughout his life, including store brands sold by Walmart, Target, and Walgreens.¹⁸
$250,000 (February 2026): A Philadelphia jury awarded damages to the family of Gayle Emerson in one of the first ovarian cancer trials after the bankruptcy collapse.¹⁰

Not every trial has gone against J&J. On June 8, 2026, a Los Angeles jury returned a defense verdict in an ovarian cancer bellwether involving three plaintiffs.¹²

2026 Developments That Change the Picture

A Long-Cited Talc Safety Paper Retracted

On March 25, 2026, The Lancet retracted an unsigned 1977 commentary on talc safety that J&J’s defense teams had cited for decades. Public health historians David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz discovered through archives that the commentary was written by Francis J.C. Roe, a paid J&J consultant who shared an advance draft with the company and revised it based on corporate feedback before publication. The Lancet‘s editors called the undisclosed relationship a “clear breach of publishing ethics” and said they would not have published the piece had they known.¹⁹²⁰

New Defendants in the MDL

In August 2025, Judge Shipp ruled that plaintiffs could add Kenvue (J&J’s consumer health spinoff), Holdco, and Janssen as defendants in the MDL master complaint. Plaintiffs’ liaison counsel said the ruling may hinder any future talc-related bankruptcy filing by ensuring related corporate entities are already parties to the litigation.²¹

Beasley Allen Disqualified

In March 2026, U.S. Magistrate Judge Rukhsanah Singh disqualified the Alabama-based firm Beasley Allen from representing about 5,500 plaintiffs in the MDL and removed the firm from the litigation’s steering committee. The court found that a Beasley Allen principal had exchanged privileged information about potential settlement terms with an attorney who had previously represented J&J.²² The firm said it would appeal. A New Jersey state court had already disqualified the firm from representing 435 additional claimants the previous month.²³ If you were represented by Beasley Allen, expect your case to be reassigned.

FDA Standard Withdrawn

In December 2024, the FDA proposed a rule that would have required standardized asbestos testing for talc-containing cosmetics. In November 2025, the agency withdrew the proposal to further assess public comments, leaving no finalized federal testing standard in place.²⁴

Claims Beyond Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson is the primary target, but not the only one. The May 2026 Minnesota verdict against Vi-Jon, Gold Bond, Merck, and Perrigo showed that makers of store-brand and generic talc products face similar liability.¹⁸ Separately, a group of 40 talc claimants has petitioned the Second Circuit to hold Revlon responsible for injury claims despite the company’s bankruptcy, arguing they received inadequate notice of filing deadlines during Chapter 11.²⁵

Litigation has also gone international. In the United Kingdom, the law firm KP Law filed a group claim in the High Court in October 2025 on behalf of over 7,000 people who allege J&J sold asbestos-contaminated talcum powder that caused cancers including mesothelioma and ovarian cancer. At a procedural hearing in late April 2026, KP Law urged the court to expedite proceedings because roughly one claimant was dying every three days. The case is projected to be the largest product liability action in UK history.²⁶

1
Reuters. Johnson & Johnson Knew for Decades That Asbestos Lurked in Its Baby Powder
2
National Library of Medicine. Cosmetic Talc as a Risk Factor for Malignant Mesothelioma and Ovarian Cancer
3
Reuters. J&J Vows Appeal After US Jury Hits It With Record $1.5 Billion Talc Cancer Award
4
American Cancer Society. Talcum Powder and Cancer
5
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Talc Use and Ovarian Cancer Risk
6
Nigh Goldenberg Raso & Vaughn. Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Lawsuit
7
New York Times. Johnson & Johnson to End Talc-Based Baby Powder Sales Globally
8
U.S. District Court, District of New Jersey. Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Litigation
9
Drugwatch. Talcum Powder Lawsuits
10
Miller & Zois. Talcum Powder Lawsuit
11
Drugwatch. Talcum Powder Settlements
12
TorHoerman Law. Johnson and Johnson Talcum Powder Lawsuit
13
Fierce Pharma. Baltimore Jury Orders J&J to Pay $1.5B, Largest Ever Award to Talc Plaintiff
14
Bloomberg. J&J Must Pay Record $966 Million in Talc Baby Powder Cancer Case
15
Goldberg Segalla. Los Angeles Jury Awards $966M for Asbestos Talc-Related Mesothelioma
16
Bloomberg. Johnson & Johnson Asbestos Talc Missouri
17
Beasley Allen. $40 Million Verdict Talc Trial Triumph
18
Star Tribune. Minnesota Couple Awarded $10.2 Million in Mesothelioma Talc Verdict
19
Asbestos.com. The Lancet Retracts 1977 Talc Safety Paper Linked to J&J
20
Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Historians Unearth Conflict of Interest Prompting Retraction in Lancet Journal
21
New Jersey Law Journal. MDL Judge Allows Talc Plaintiffs to Sue Additional Johnson & Johnson Affiliates
22
Law.com. Judge Orders Beasley Allen Disqualified From Talc MDL
23
Bailey Glasser. Johnson & Johnson Bankruptcy Foe Ousted in Talc Litigation
24
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Talc
25
Law360. Talc Claimants Tell 2nd Circuit Revlon Must Allow Late Claims
26
BBC. Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder UK Lawsuit