Judge Jane Morrison, Fulton County State Court, Atlanta. (Photo: John Disney/ ALM)

The Fulton County judge overseeing a trial in which Johnson & Johnson is accused of marketing talc-based baby powder that caused a woman's ovarian cancer declined to stop the trial and clear the company of liability after the plaintiffs wrapped up their case.

In a motion for a directed verdict, Johnson & Johnson said the attorneys for the deceased woman's granddaughter and executor had failed to prove the baby powder was linked to ovarian cancer in general or that it caused the death of Diane Brower.

They also said there was no evidence Johnson & Johnson had any reason to warn people that they may be at risk of cancer by using the product.

The call for Johnson & Johnson to be cleared of liability came more than two weeks into the trial before Judge Jane Morrison. The litigation centers on claims that Brower used the company's baby powder for decades before being diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer a few years before her death in 2016.

Lead plaintiffs attorney R. Allen Smith of The Smith Firm in Ridgeland, Mississippi, and his team have presented expert testimony from three physicians to support their thesis that Brower's use of the powder led to her cancer. Smith is working alongside Ted Meadows of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin Portis & Miles in Montgomery, Alabama, and Sharon Zinns and Robert Register in the firm's Atlanta office.

The defense team, led by James Smith of Blank Rome in Philadelphia, includes Debra Pole and Eric Schwartz of Sidley Austin in Los Angeles; Z. Ileana Martinez and Leslie Suson of Thompson Hine in Atlanta; and Mark Hegerty of Shook Hardy & Bacon in Kansas City, Missouri.

Their motion said none of the experts presented evidence of either general or specific causation. They argued that only one was qualified to make such a judgment, and he only decided talc was linked to ovarian cancer after being hired to do so.

"At trial, plaintiffs offered three scientific experts," the motion said, whom "the plaintiffs may contend support a finding of causation. None of them do."

One doctor, gynecologist-oncologist James Barter of Rockville, Maryland, "conceded that his general causation opinion that perineal application of baby powder can cause ovarian cancer is not generally accepted by the scientific community" and "thus, by his own admission, is unreliable," the motion argued.

In fact, the motion said, in some of the studies Barter referenced, "increased dosage of talc actually decreased risk of ovarian cancer."

That fact that Barter continued to argue that talc can cause ovarian cancer "despite evidence indicating the opposite to be true, illustrates his 'results only' approach to providing helpful testimony for plaintiffs at all costs."

"Indeed, Dr. Barter conceded that he formed an opinion that talcum powder caused ovarian cancer only after he was hired and paid as an expert witness in this case, and prior to this, during his entire career of 42 years, he never held such an opinion, and never told a patient who had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer that it had been caused by her use of talcum powder," the motion said.

Another expert, John Godleski of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is a pulmonary pathologist.

"Dr. Godleski is unqualified," the defense filing said, and "conceded both that he is not an oncologist or gynecologist and that he is not an expert in the field of ovarian cancer or its cause.

"Rather," it continued, "he admitted that his testimony was being offered only related to the alleged presence of talc in Ms. Brower's pathology tissue."

Godleski himself said he was not expressing any causation opinion and acknowledged that there has been no conclusive proof that talc applied to the genital area can enter the vagina, it said.

The third witness, pharmacologist and toxicologist Laura Plunkett, was called to testify about Johnson & Johnson's duty to warn, it said, and "specifically testified that she is not a causation expert and thus, by her own admission, none of her opinions may be considered on the issue of general or specific causation."

As to that duty, the defense argued, it was only in 1982 that a key study linked the use of perineal talc to ovarian cancer. Brower stopped using the powder in 1980, so Johnson & Johnson had no duty to warn her, it said.

The plaintiffs' reply said Plunkett's testimony demonstrated that talc was known to be toxic to human tissue as far back as the 1930s and had been linked to cancer of the female organs since the 1960s.

Both Godleski and Barter presented evidence that talc was the proximate cause of Brower's cancer, it said.

Godleski testified that talc particles were found in her tissues and cited studies showing that talc could migrate from the vaginal area to the pelvic organs.

Barter testified that studies showed Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder caused ovarian cancer, and that Brower's use of it was a contributing cause of her cancer.

On Tuesday, Morrison declined to grant the defense motion, and J&J began presenting their case, with testimony likely to last at least until Friday.

The litigation is one of more than an estimated 14,600 cases filed around the country claiming that Johnson & Johnson continued marketing its talc-containing products without warning women they could lead to an increased risk for ovarian cancer.