A Missouri appeals court has reversed a $110 million talcum powder verdict against Johnson & Johnson.

Tuesday's ruling by the Missouri Court of Appeals found that the Virginia plaintiff, Lois Slemp, who alleged she got ovarian cancer in 2012 from using Johnson & Johnson's baby powder, had no jurisdiction to bring her case in Missouri under the U.S. Supreme Court's 2017 decision in Bristol-Myers Squibb v. Superior Court of California. The ruling wipes out the fourth verdict in a St. Louis courtroom that helped launch much of the ovarian cancer litigation against Johnson & Johnson.

"The Missouri Court of Appeals ruled correctly in overturning a $110 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson," wrote Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Jennifer Taylor. "Of the four verdicts that Johnson & Johnson has appealed to this court, all four have been reversed."

Johnson & Johnson's attorney in the appeal was Thomas Weaver, a partner at Armstrong Teasdale in St. Louis.

Slemp's attorney in the appeal, Edward "Chip" Robertson, a partner at Leawood, Kansas-based Bartimus Frickleton Robertson and former chief judge of the Missouri Supreme Court, did not return a call for comment. But Ted Meadows, of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, who represented Slemp during trial, said in a statement that he planned to petition the Missouri Supreme Court.

The Slemp case dates back to 2017, when a jury issued its award, which included $105 million in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson. The verdict was the fourth in Missouri, with three other women, all from other states, previously obtaining awards of $55 million, $72 million and $70 million.

But Bristol-Myers has thrown a wrench into the Missouri verdicts on appeal. In Bristol-Myers, the Supreme Court found that plaintiffs who sued over injuries attributed to blood thinner Plavix had failed to establish specific jurisdiction because there wasn't enough of a link between their claims and California, where they brought their case.

Plaintiffs lawyers hoping to affirm the talcum powder verdicts in St. Louis had attempted to introduce evidence of a Missouri talc supplier that served as a distributor to Johnson & Johnson. That supplier, Pharma Tech, established jurisdiction under Bristol-Myers, they argued.

In 2017, the Missouri Court of Appeals reversed the $72 million verdict, concluding that it could not allow new discovery given the "advanced posture" of the case. The appeals court made similar findings as to the $55 million verdict in 2018 and the $70 million verdict on June 18 of this year.

Slemp's case originally involved 62 plaintiffs, 61 of whom, including Slemp, were not from Missouri. But St. Louis Judge Rex Burlison upheld Slemp's jury award, finding for the first time that the new evidence was sufficient to overcome Bristol-Myers.

The Missouri Court of Appeals disagreed. Its eight-page ruling also applies to Imerys Talc America Inc., another defendant that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year.  

The Missouri Supreme Court has shut down many planned talcum powder trials. Earlier this year, the high court halted a Jan. 22 trial of 13 women and an April 8 trial of 24 women when it granted petitions for a writ of prohibition filed by both Johnson & Johnson and Imerys, which cited Bristol-Myers. Those planned trials would have followed a $4.7 billion verdict for 22 women last year that Johnson & Johnson has appealed after Burlison upheld the award, citing its "reprehensible conduct."

On Feb. 13, an en banc panel of the Missouri Supreme Court, taking up separate precedent decisions involving jurisdiction in Missouri, found that a Missouri resident, Michael Blaes, whose wife died of ovarian cancer in 2010, lacked jurisdiction to pursue his claims in St. Louis because he didn't live there.