Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com

A California jury has awarded $25.75 million to a woman diagnosed with mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure from using Johnson & Johnson's baby powder thousands of times.

The verdict, announced on Thursday, follows a $117 million award that a New Jersey jury came out with last month against Johnson & Johnson and Imerys Talc America Inc., a talc supplier, over similar claims. It's the third verdict among cases that allege Johnson & Johnson's cosmetic talcum powder products caused mesothelioma. A fourth trial, involving a lawyer in South Carolina who died, began on May 14.

“Our clients are hopeful that this verdict can further bring light to this unbelievable example of corporate misconduct,” plaintiffs attorney David Greenstone, a shareholder at Dallas-based Simon Greenstone Panatier, wrote in a statement. “Johnson's baby powder has contained asbestos for decades. People need to know about this.”

Spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said Johnson & Johnson would appeal the verdict.

“We will continue to defend the safety of our product because it does not contain asbestos or cause mesothelioma,” she wrote in an email. “Over the past 50 years, multiple independent, non-litigation-driven scientific evaluations have been conducted by respected academic institutions and government bodies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and none have found that the talc in Johnson's baby powder contains asbestos.”

Unlike thousands of lawsuits brought by women alleging Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused ovarian cancer, the mesothelioma cases focus on whether its cosmetic talc products contained asbestos, a known carcinogen. Juries in mesothelioma cases against other talc companies, like Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Whittaker Clark & Daniels, have come out with verdicts for plaintiffs.

In the first trial over mesothelioma claims against Johnson & Johnson, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury handed the New Jersey-based pharmaceutical firm and Imerys a defense verdict on Nov. 16.

David Greenstone, partner in Dallas' Simon Greenstone Panatier.

Many of the same law firms in the first trial were up against each other in the recent case, brought by Joanne Anderson, 66. She used Johnson & Johnson's baby powder on her children and used it on herself as a bowler. Greenstone, along with firm shareholder Chris Panatier, who handled the first trial, and Conor Nideffer, an associate in the firm's Long Beach, California, office, represented Anderson. Mel Bailey of Dallas-based Bailey Crowe Arnold & Majors and King & Spalding's Alexander Calfo, a partner in Los Angeles who also was involved in the first trial, represented Johnson & Johnson.

Trial began on May 2. The Los Angeles Superior Court jury found Johnson & Johnson failed to warn and was negligent and liable for two-thirds of the compensatory damages and all the punitive damages. The award was $21.75 million in compensatory damages and $4 million in punitive damages. In addition to talcum powder products, Anderson claimed asbestos exposure from her husband's car maintenance and repair work at their home may have caused her diagnosis. Originally, nine other defendants were in the case, including Imerys, but Johnson & Johnson was the sole defendant at trial.