Johnson & Johnson company logo on headquarters building on May 12, 2018 in Prague, Czech Republic.

Johnson & Johnson cited the COVID-19 outbreak and declining demand in announcing this week it would discontinue sales of its talcum powder-based baby powder, but lawyers attributed the move to a court decision one month ago that allowed plaintiffs' experts to testify in potentially tens of thousands of lawsuits.

Johnson & Johnson's May 19 announcement, which follows years of jury verdicts in cases alleging its talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, attributed the timing to a "portfolio assessment related to COVID-19." Johnson & Johnson also cited declining demand caused by misinformation about the safety of its baby powder and a "constant barrage of litigation advertising."

Plaintiffs lawyers and law professors, however, point to an April 27 ruling from U.S. District Judge Freda Wolfson, who is overseeing the talcum powder multidistrict litigation against Johnson & Johnson in New Jersey.

That ruling, which refused to toss five plaintiffs' experts, was a "very significant setback" for Johnson & Johnson, said David Logan, a professor at Roger Williams University School of Law.

"The decision was the tipping point, saying we just can't keep racking up civil liability exposure in the tens of millions of dollars," he said. "You may be willing to litigate an issue for a while, and rack up some victories, but if you're getting losses, you've got to constantly calibrate, what is the wise strategy going forward? That's not just a legal decision. That's really a business decision."

Johnson & Johnson has spent significant money on legal costs and advertising to convince juries and consumers that there is no scientific link between its talcum powder and cancer and has criticized judges that have allowed what it called "junk science" into the courtroom.

Wolfson's ruling, based on the U.S. Supreme Court's 1993 holding in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, followed a weeklong hearing last year in which the judge heard from eight of the 39 expert witnesses introduced by both sides in the multidistrict litigation. Wolfson, who also allowed three defense experts into trials, found that "there is scientific evidence supporting each side's opinion."

"At best," she concluded, "that the body of relevant scientific evidence is inconclusive and may be open to different interpretations—does not mean one side's interpretation is more reliable than the other."

It's not the first ruling to address whether plaintiffs' experts could testify about whether Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused cancer; others have come from judges in state courts, primarily in Missouri, California and New Jersey. Johnson & Johnson also has won some of those decisions.

But Wolfson, who is chief judge of the federal court in New Jersey, is overseeing more than 16,000 lawsuits whose next step is trial.

"The big problem for Johnson & Johnson was they were claiming there was no causation," said Mark Robinson, of Robinson Calcagnie in Newport Beach, California, who won a $417 million talcum powder verdict against Johnson & Johnson in 2017 that an appeals court later reversed. "A Daubert ruling like that is one of the biggest things showing causation we have in our product liability system. Winning a Daubert hearing, usually, when it goes for the defense, the plaintiffs stop."

Moshe Maimon, a partner at New York's Levy Konigsberg who has won several talcum powder verdicts against Johnson & Johnson, including a $750 million punitive damages award earlier this year in New Jersey, also was skeptical that Johnson & Johnson's decision had anything to do with the COVID-19 outbreak. He said Johnson & Johnson has, for years, talked about limiting sales to baby powder made of cornstarch, rather than talcum powder, which has been losing market share for some time.

"COVID is a good time to do it because people's attention is understandably focused on something else," he said, "and this is an opportune time to take a dangerous product off the market."

Johnson & Johnson had other setbacks before Wolfson's ruling. Last year, two congressional hearings featuring some of the same plaintiffs' experts before Wolfson probed into the safety of talcum powder products and, late last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found asbestos in bottles of Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder, a finding that supported the allegations of plaintiffs attorneys in recent trials. Johnson & Johnson challenged the FDA's finding with its own testing, but had to recall 33,000 bottles of its baby powder.

Wolfson's ruling, Maimon said, was simply the "straw that broke the camel's back."

Going forward, Johnson & Johnson's decision could have little impact on pending lawsuits, most of which involve women who used Johnson & Johnson's baby powder for decades. Given the latency of cancer, more plaintiffs also could file new lawsuits after receiving a diagnosis.

But that doesn't mean plaintiffs lawyers won't try to get the decision admitted into court.

"I think it's an admission," said Robinson, who is gearing up for another trial in California state court. "The court is going to have to decide if it's an admission or not, but I think it's an admission. They just don't accidentally drop a product they've had for well over 100 years."

A Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman said the company, which has the option to appeal Wolfson's ruling, would "vigorously defend" its talc products in future trials.

"We are confident in our legal strategy and our defense, which is supported by decades of scientific evidence showing our talc is safe and does not contain asbestos," wrote Kimberly Montagnino in an email.

What's less clear is whether the decision could prompt Johnson & Johnson to the settlement table.

"I don't know of any of them personally, but I'd be very surprised if there wasn't a back channel of discussions of at least the concept of settlement, while threatening to take it up on appeal and changing their design," Logan said. "Most parties, at this stage, probably would welcome some conversations about settlement. It's a huge war of attrition."