Agreement requires acceptance by 95% of 76,000 ovarian cancer claimants
Johnson & Johnson announced Monday that it will pay an estimated $5.5 billion to settle about 76,000 lawsuits alleging its baby powder and other talc products caused ovarian cancer, in a deal that could bring an end to a long-running legal battle. The settlement covers nearly all remaining talc claims against the company, including cases consolidated in a federal court in New Jersey and related state court actions.
The settlement must be accepted by 95% of the ovarian cancer claimants in state or federal court before it becomes final, according to plaintiffs’ law firms that confirmed the deal on Monday. Johnson & Johnson expects to pay $3 billion in 2027, with further payments in 2028. The deal could ultimately be worth more, depending on how many people participate, said Chris Seeger, a lawyer who represents about 2,500 clients with talc claims and helped negotiate the agreement.
Seeger said the settlement assigns specific values to qualifying ovarian cancer claims but does not cap Johnson & Johnson’s total payout. “We got a fair settlement, and our clients are going to be happy with it,” Seeger said. He estimated that the company could ultimately pay $7 billion or more.
Johnson & Johnson’s vice president of litigation, Erik Haas, said the company considered the claims “meritless” and maintained that it was willing to settle in order to get closure. “While we are confident the company would have ultimately prevailed with further litigation, as it has in the vast majority of cases tried to date, this resolution allows the company to put this matter behind it and remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives,” Haas said in a statement.
The company has long denied that its talc products caused cancer, saying that talc was safe and did not contain asbestos. Johnson & Johnson stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the United States in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product, and discontinued it worldwide in 2023.
The settlement comes after a series of legal wins for Johnson & Johnson, including victories in individual trials, successful efforts to disqualify plaintiffs’ lawyers from the litigation, and court rulings against experts that plaintiffs had used to prove their cases. Last week, a federal judge cast doubt on individual plaintiffs’ ability to prove that talc specifically caused their ovarian cancer, ordering plaintiffs to explain why their claims should not be dismissed.
Before the settlement, Johnson & Johnson had pursued a strategy known as the “Texas two-step,” filing three bankruptcies through a shell-company subsidiary in an effort to settle the cases. Each bankruptcy ended in dismissal. The company previously had a mixed record in talc trials, with a multibillion-dollar verdict in favor of 22 women who said baby powder caused their ovarian cancer, while winning some other trials outright and having other verdicts reduced on appeal.
Unlike the proposed bankruptcy settlements, Monday’s agreement applies only to existing claims and does not address future lawsuits. Seeger said the exclusion of future claims made more money available to current plaintiffs than the bankruptcy proposal did, and also accelerates payments so that all claims will be paid within 18 months instead of being spread out over more than a decade.
Johnson & Johnson has been facing talc-related lawsuits since at least the late 2000s and has paid out billions of dollars in judgments and settlements. In 2021, it paid about $2.5 billion, including interest, to women whose claims were consolidated in Missouri. In 2024, it agreed to pay $700 million to resolve a separate investigation by 43 state attorneys general into allegations that it deceptively marketed the safety and purity of its talc-based products.