By now, you’ve probably read reports of the $8 billion punitive verdict against Johnson & Johnson in an individual case alleging failure to warn that young men using its antipsychotic drug Risperdal could develop breasts.  Robot-like, virtually every article about the verdict says that the verdict is likely to be reduced because it is disproportionate to the $680,000 award of compensatory damages.
Continue Reading If This Isn’t A Product Of Passion Or Prejudice, What Is?

Only three months after AbbVie obtained a retrial of a case in which a jury had imposed $150 million in punitive damages without awarding any compensatory damages, a new jury awarded the same plaintiff $200,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages.
Continue Reading New Jury Imposes Disproportionate Punitive Award In AbbVie Retrial

They don’t call the California Superior Court in Los Angeles “The Bank” for nothing. Late last month, a jury held Johnson & Johnson liable for $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages in a case brought by an individual plaintiff who alleges that her terminal ovarian cancer was caused by using J&J’s talcum powder.
Continue Reading California Jury Returns $417 Million Award—Of Which $347 Million Constitute Punitive Damages—In Individual Case Alleging That Talcum Powder Causes Ovarian Cancer

You’ve likely seen by now media reports about an Illinois federal jury’s $150 million punitive award against AbbVie in a case brought by a plaintiff who alleged that AbbVie’s low-T medication AndroGel caused his heart attack.

The jury found against the plaintiff on his strict-liability and negligence claims. It found in favor of the plaintiff on his fraudulent-misrepresentation claim.  However, the jury awarded no compensatory damages on that claim; nevertheless, it imposed $150 million in punitive damages.
Continue Reading Federal Jury Returns $150 Million Punitive Verdict Against AbbVie—Without Awarding Any Compensatory Damages For The Plaintiff’s Injury—As A Result Of Multiply Flawed Jury Instructions

Just about a week after suffering its third punitive award in pelvic-mesh litigation, Johnson & Johnson found itself on the wrong end of a $105 million punitive award—close to 20 times the $5.4 million compensatory award—in litigation alleging that its iconic talcum powder causes ovarian cancer in women.
Continue Reading Punitive Damages Overkill Redux: J&J Hit With Another Massive Disproportionate Punitive Award In Talc Litigation

800px-Judge_Henry_FriendlyAs early as 1967, Judge Friendly worried about the phenomenon of punitive damages overkill in mass tort litigation. Fifty years later, the problem persists.

Last week, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, jury awarded a plaintiff $2.5 million in compensatory damages and $17.5 million in punitive damages—seven times the compensatory damages—in the latest of a large series of cases alleging that Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Ethicon had failed to warn about the risks of its pelvic-mesh device. In previous cases, juries had imposed punitive awards of $5 million, $7 million, and $10 million.
Continue Reading Punitive Damages Overkill: J&J Hit With Still Another Disproportionate Punitive Award In Pelvic-Mesh Litigation

A bankruptcy judge in the Eastern District of California recently issued a decision that is sure to raise appellate eyebrows.

Concluding in In re Sundquist that the defendant bank had violated the automatic stay by foreclosing on the home of a bankrupt mortgagor and enraged by what it perceived to be heavy-handed behavior both before and after the stay violation, the court awarded the plaintiffs $1,074,581.50 in compensatory damages and ordered the defendant to pay a whopping $45 million in punitive damages—i.e., nearly 42 times the quite substantial compensatory award.

But concerned that such a massive amount of punitive damages would be a windfall to the plaintiffs, the judge ordered the plaintiffs to pay $40 million, minus applicable taxes, to two non-profit organizations whose stated mission is to advance the interests of consumers in litigation and bankruptcy proceedings—the National Consumer Law Center and the National Consumer Bankruptcy Rights Center—and the five California state law schools. Specifically, the judge decided to bestow $10 million each (before taxes) on the two consumer law centers and $4 million each (before taxes) on the five law schools.
Continue Reading Bankruptcy Court Imposes Massively Disproportionate $45 Million Punitive Exaction, Then Plays Santa Claus With $40 Million Of It

600px-I-70.svgSt. Louis and Kansas City have long been cross-state baseball rivals. Who can forget the 1985 I-70 World Series?

So it is hardly surprising that on the eve of St. Louis being named by the American Tort Reform Association as the number one Judicial Hellhole in the country, juries in Jackson County (home to Kansas City) would stake their own claim to that dubious distinction by returning two jaw-dropping punitive awards in consecutive days.
Continue Reading Kansas City Gives St. Louis A Run For The Money–Literally

Hot, burning tunnel & light. Way to another worldIn recent years, St. Louis has done much to earn a place on the American Tort Reform Association’s list of judicial hell holes.  Not content to rest on its laurels, the St. Louis circuit court grabbed the headlines again last week with a draw-dropping $70 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson ($67.25 million, including $65 million in punitive damages) and Imerys Talc America ($2.75 million, including $2.5 million in punitive damages) in a case alleging that J&J talcum powder caused the plaintiff’s ovarian cancer.
Continue Reading St. Louis Jury Returns Another Jaw-Dropping Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson