The sixth trial over whether Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused mesothelioma opened on Monday, with a defense lawyer telling a jury that the New Jersey pharmaceutical company went to “extraordinary lengths” to ensure that its cosmetic talc did not contain the toxic mineral asbestos.

The trial comes in a case brought by California resident Carolyn Weirick, diagnosed in 2017 with mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer. Weirick, 59, claims her illness was due to her prolonged use of Johnson & Johnson's baby powder.

Christopher Vejnoska. Courtesy photo

Orrick's Christopher Vejnoska, a partner in San Francisco, told jurors in a Los Angeles courtroom that Johnson & Johnson “constantly sampled” its talc products, according to coverage of the trial by Courtroom View Network.

“Johnson & Johnson's talc products were not contaminated with asbestos,” he said. “That didn't happen by accident. That didn't happen by luck. It happened because Johnson & Johnson went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that its products were not contaminated and to be sure that people could trust those products.”

But Weirick's lawyer, Jay Stuemke, a shareholder at Simon Greenstone & Panatier in Dallas, honed in on the trust Johnson & Johnson relied on with its customers.

“This case is about trust,” he told jurors. “This case is about a breach of that trust by Johnson & Johnson first, joined by Imerys, throughout my client's lifetime. The trust that we're talking about is a trust that's been carefully cultivated over 100 years.”

Brad DeJardin, of Dentons in Los Angeles, represented Imerys.

The trial is the sixth to allege that Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused someone to get mesothelioma.

The first trial ended with a defense verdict on Nov. 16 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

J&J Gains Defense Verdict in First Trial Linking Talc Product to Mesothelioma

This year, another Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded $25.75 million, and a jury in Middlesex County, New Jersey, awarded $117 million, to plaintiffs in mesothelioma cases against Johnson & Johnson and Imerys. Two other cases, in Los Angeles Superior Court and Darlington County Circuit Court in South Carolina, ended in mistrials.

The trial is separate from the nearly 5,000 cases alleging Johnson & Johnson's talcum powder products caused women to get ovarian cancer. In those cases, juries in Missouri and California have come out with five verdicts ranging from $55 million to $4.7 billion—though two awards have since been tossed out. Unlike those cases, which have focused on the alleged links between Johnson & Johnson's talc products and ovarian cancer, the mesothelioma cases target whether cosmetic talc products contained asbestos, which is known to cause mesothelioma.

Other suits have been brought against Colgate-Palmolive Co. and talc distributor Whittaker, Clark & Daniels Inc. over such products as Old Spice, Cashmere Bouquet and Desert Flower.

In opening statements this week, lawyers on both sides criticized each other's testing methods.

Jay Stuemke. Courtesy photo

Stuemke said there were hundreds of studies that revealed asbestos in Johnson & Johnson's baby powder. He also challenged Johnson & Johnson's own scientific findings, which he said relied on a testing method that was inadequate for identifying minuscule asbestos fibers. He demonstrated that argument to jurors by trying to weigh needles on an ordinary bathroom scale.

“They're using a bathroom scale to test for needles, and then they're telling you there's no needles because it doesn't show up on the scale,” he said.

Vejnoska countered that Johnson & Johnson based its findings on thousands of actual samples taken from talc mines. He also raised doubt as to whether asbestos was the cause of Weirick's mesothelioma, noting that, for most women with the same disease, it is not.

“It's unfortunate, but sometimes, cancer just happens,” he said. “And that's not an excuse. That's just science.”

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