PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania: A Pennsylvania jury has found Johnson & Johnson liable in a lawsuit alleging its talc-based baby powder caused ovarian cancer, awarding US$250,000 to the family of a woman who died from the disease.

The verdict, delivered on February 13 in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, sided with the family of Gayle Emerson, who claimed the company knew for years its talc-based products were dangerous but failed to warn consumers.

Jurors awarded Emerson's family $50,000 in compensatory damages and $200,000 in punitive damages.

In a statement, Erik Haas, J&J's worldwide vice president of litigation, said the company plans to appeal.

"This token verdict reflects the jury's appreciation that the claims were meritless and divorced from the science," Haas said.

Leigh O'Dell of the Beasley Allen Law Firm, who represented Emerson's family, said the jury "found J&J's product and corporate conduct directly responsible for the death of Ms. Emerson."

"While the jury's award is less than we hoped, and significantly less than the amount necessary to punish J&J for their outrageous conduct, we are moving forward," O'Dell said.

Emerson, a Pennsylvania resident, filed her lawsuit in 2019 and died six months later at age 68, according to court records. Her son and daughter continued the case after she died of metastatic ovarian cancer.

According to the lawsuit, Emerson used J&J's baby powder from 1969 until 2017, when a relative told her it was linked to an increased risk of ovarian cancer. She had been diagnosed with the disease two years earlier.

Johnson & Johnson faces more than 67,000 lawsuits in federal and state courts alleging its talc-based products contained asbestos and caused ovarian and other cancers, according to court filings. The company has denied the claims, saying its products are safe, do not contain asbestos, and do not cause cancer. It stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the United States in 2020 and switched to a cornstarch-based product.

J&J has attempted to resolve the litigation through bankruptcy proceedings, but federal courts have rejected the proposals three times, most recently in April last year. Those bankruptcy efforts had paused most ovarian cancer cases.

The first ovarian cancer trial after that pause ended resulted in a California jury awarding $40 million to two women in December.

Several additional cases are scheduled for trial in state courts in the coming months. Although most claims have been consolidated in federal court, no federal trial has yet taken place. That could change this year after a U.S. magistrate judge ruled in January that plaintiffs in the federal litigation may present expert testimony linking baby powder use to ovarian cancer. J&J has said it will appeal that ruling.

Before its bankruptcy attempts, J&J saw mixed results in talc trials, with some verdicts reaching as high as $4.69 billion, while other cases were won outright or reduced on appeal.