Johnson & Johnson baby powder.

A jury hit Johnson & Johnson with a $750 million verdict on Thursday in a trial alleging its baby powder caused four people to get mesothelioma, but the judge is likely to reduce the award to $185 million.

A New Jersey jury issued the award, which was all punitive damages, after less than a day of deliberations and about three weeks of trial. The punitive damages add to a $37 million compensatory damages verdict that a separate jury awarded in the same case in September.

"We are pleased that justice is done," wrote Christopher Placitella of Cohen, Placitella & Roth in Red Bank, New Jersey, who tried the case with Chris Panatier of Dallas-based Simon Greenstone Panatier.

The award goes to plaintiffs Douglas Barden and his wife, Roslyn Barden; David Ethridge and his wife, Darlene Etheridge; D'Angella McNeill; and Elizabeth Ronning, the widow of Will Ronning, who died on Oct. 5. The verdict, according to Courtroom View Network's coverage of the trial, included awards of $93.75 million for each plaintiff against Johnson & Johnson, and another $93.75 million for each plaintiff against its unit, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc.

"Today's verdict is at odds with the decades of evidence showing that the Company acted responsibly, was guided by sound science and used the most sophisticated testing available for its talc," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement. "We will quickly move forward with an appeal of both phases of this trial based on the numerous legal errors that subjected the jury to irrelevant information and prevented them from hearing meaningful evidence."

John Beisner, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom who represents Johnson & Johnson, said in an additional statement: "This trial was an outlier from the very beginning with the highly unusual and prejudicial two phases and was riddled with legal error all throughout. We have strong grounds to appeal this verdict and look forward to a full appellate review."

In the first phase of the trial, Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Ana Viscomi struck the closing argument of Johnson & Johnson's attorney, Diane Sullivan, of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, after she "denigrated" plaintiffs' counsel, calling them "sinister" and "attacking the profession." Johnson & Johnson moved for a mistrial based on the judge's action. Viscomi denied the mistrial motion but did not give her reasons on the record.

In the punitive damages phase, Johnson & Johnson turned to Allison Brown of Skadden Arps, and Morton Dubin, who joined King & Spalding earlier this month from Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. John Garde of McCarter & English also represents J&J.

In March 2019 Brown and Dubin obtained a defense verdict in another mesothelioma case against Johnson & Johnson in Middlesex County, which is home to Johnson & Johnson's headquarters. And in October 2018, Brown, then at Weil, partnered with Sullivan to win another defense verdict there.

In December 2019, Brown scored a defense verdict for Johnson & Johnson in Missouri, but Dubin was on the trial team that lost a record $4.7 billion verdict in July 2018 in a case brought by 22 women alleging Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused ovarian cancer.

In 2017, Dubin won the first talc trial over mesothelioma in Los Angeles Superior Court, where he went up against Panatier.

Panatier won a $25.75 million award in May 2018 in a mesothelioma case in Los Angeles Superior Court against Johnson & Johnson.