A New York Supreme Court jury handed up a $300 million punitive damages verdict in favor of a woman who claims prolonged exposure to asbestos-containing talcum powder caused her to develop mesothelioma.

The verdict, announced in a Manhattan courtroom May 31, includes $200 million against Johnson & Johnson and $100 million against Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., and comes little more than a week after the same jury handed up a $25 million verdict for compensatory damages. With the May 31 verdict, the total award in the case comes to $325 million.

Plaintiffs Donna and Robert Olson were represented by attorneys from Levy Konigsberg, with Jerome Block as lead counsel.

In an emailed statement, Block said J&J's litigation strategy consisted of attempting to divert attention away from its internal documents.

“The internal J&J documents that the jury saw, once more laid bare the shocking truth of decades of cover-up, deception and concealment by J&J of the asbestos found in talc baby powder,” Block said. “We are proud to represent people like Donna and Robert Olson and are committed to the rest of our clients who have been wronged by J&J.”

In an emailed statement, Kimberly Montagnino, a spokeswoman for J&J, said the trial “suffered significant legal and evidentiary errors which Johnson & Johnson believes will warrant a reversal on appeal.” She noted that other talc verdicts have been overturned on appeal, and said the science does not support the verdict.

“Fifty years of independent scientific evaluations have been conducted by government bodies, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, as well as academic institutions, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Colorado School of Mines, and Princeton University, all of which confirm that Johnson's baby powder is safe,” Montagnino said.

The punitive damages phase in Olson began May 28, and the jury was charged with the case on May 30.

In the lead-up to the punitive damages trial, plaintiffs secured a key ruling when New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits said the punitives phase could include evidence beyond Johnson & Johnson's finances.

Lebovits had ruled that the plaintiff should be able to introduce new evidence during the punitive damages phase, including evidence of the company's out-of-state conduct and advertisements for its Baby Powder products that ran between the 1960s and 1990s.

The plaintiffs had also sought to have the jury consider evidence of J&J's conduct after 2015—the approximate date that Donna Olson stopped using the company's talcum powder—but Lebovits rejected that request.

The May 31 verdict was the latest in a series of wins for plaintiffs in little more than a year, including a $117 million verdict in New Jersey state court, a $25.75 million win in Los Angeles, and a $29 million verdict from an Alameda County, California, jury.

But J&J has had its wins as well. In October 2018, another New Jersey jury issued a defense verdict, and on the same day the jury in Olson handed up its compensatory award, a South Carolina jury rendered a defense verdict in another mesothelioma case.

Robert Brock of Kirkland & Ellis was lead attorney for the defense. The defense team also consisted of attorneys from Hoagland, Longo, Moran, Dunst & Doukas, Litchfield Cavo, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler, and Landman Corsi Ballaine & Ford.