Johnson & Johnson Can’t Block Lawsuit Claiming It Lied About Asbestos in Talc

Johnson & Johnson can’t use its baby powder bankruptcy to prevent a lawsuit that accuses the company of hiding evidence that its industrial talc operation exposed workers to the toxic material asbestos, a federal judge ruled.

The judge overseeing the bankruptcy case of LTL Management sided with the family of a man who sued J&J in 1986. The man agreed to drop his lawsuit after the company produced sworn testimony claiming no tests ever showed J&J’s industrial talc contained asbestos, according to court documents. He died in 1994.

The family now plans to sue J&J, saying that testimony was false, citing new evidence. In court papers, lawyers for the family allege that thousands of asbestos suits against J&J failed because of false information provided by the company.

Asbestos is an industrial material that is known to cause fatal lung disorders. Until it was found to be toxic, the product was used in everything from insulation to automobile brakes. Since the 1980s, companies have paid tens of billions of dollars to hundreds of thousands of victims.

J&J once owned a talc mine, called Windsor Minerals, that produced material used in baby powder and other products. The company has long denied that the talc in its consumer products contained any asbestos. It currently faces more than 40,000 claims that the talc in baby powder causes cancer.

In an emailed statement, J&J said it will fight the pending lawsuit.

“We stand by the safety of the talc sold by Windsor Minerals, which was once a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary. The company was later sold to a non-J&J entity in the late 1980s. Johnson & Johnson denies the claims brought forth in this suit and will defend the case if it proceeds.”

Last year, J&J set up LTL Management and put it into bankruptcy in order to resolve all of those claims by setting up a trust funded with at least $2 billion to pay alleged victims. While in bankruptcy, the baby powder lawsuits have been put on hold.

During a court hearing Tuesday, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan ruled that the proposed lawsuit alleging J&J hid evidence appears to be different enough from the baby powder cases to go forward. Kaplan left the door open for J&J to argue in the future that the suit should be halted.

The J&J bankruptcy case is LTL Management LLC, 21-30589, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of New Jersey (Trenton).