J&J Faces $32M Talc Verdict as Lawsuits Mount
Legislation & Litigation
Written by Travis Rodgers | Edited by Amy Edel
A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $32 million to the family of Maria Lozano. The lawsuit accused the company of manufacturing a defective product and failing to warn consumers about the dangers of asbestos-contaminated talc in its baby powder.
Lozano used Johnson’s Baby Powder daily for more than 50 years, applying it to herself and her children regularly. Her husband also used the product.
Doctors diagnosed her with pleural mesothelioma in 2023 and she filed a personal injury lawsuit. After her death in 2024, her children, John Lozano, Araceli Lenard-Lozano and Jeanette Lozano, continued the talc lawsuit as a wrongful death lawsuit.
The family’s attorneys presented internal corporate records and expert testimony at trial. They showed the jury that J&J knew about the risks of asbestos contamination in its talc products for decades but didn’t warn consumers. Attorney Danny Kraft, who represented the family at trial, said “The jury carefully considered the evidence and concluded that Maria Lozano’s mesothelioma was caused by decades of exposure to asbestos-contaminated Johnson’s Baby Powder.”
Lozano’s legal team also showed that J&J had internal data for decades highlighting asbestos contamination at its mining and processing sites. The jury found the company didn’t act on that information or warn the public.
“Maria Lozano spent decades trusting and using J&J’s baby powder on herself and her children,” attorney Mark Linder explained. “The jury saw the devastating consequences of that exposure and returned a verdict that holds Johnson & Johnson accountable for the harm caused to this family.”
J&J argued that environmental factors, other cosmetic brands and her husband’s automotive work were the cause of Lozano’s asbestos exposure. The jury rejected all of those arguments and placed full responsibility on J&J.
J&J’s Talc Litigation: Years of Growing Legal Pressure
J&J sold talc-based baby powder for more than a century. Lab tests detected asbestos in its products from 1971 through the early 2000s. The company never reported those findings to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It didn’t stop selling talc-based baby powder in the U.S. until 2020 and globally until 2023.
In March 2026, the peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet retracted a nearly 50-year-old paper that defense attorneys had long used to argue cosmetic talc doesn’t cause cancer. Public health historians showed the paper’s author, a J&J consultant, shared an advance draft with the company and revised it based on its feedback before publication. The Lancet called that undisclosed relationship a “clear breach of publishing ethics.” Plaintiffs’ attorneys say they plan to use the retraction directly in upcoming trials.
The company tried multiple times to end its talc liabilities through a legal strategy known as the “Texas Two-Step,” creating subsidiaries to absorb its lawsuits and filing for bankruptcy. A federal judge rejected its most recent attempt, a proposed $8 billion settlement, in March 2025. After that third rejection, J&J abandoned the strategy and announced it would litigate each remaining case individually.
Verdicts mounted quickly after that. In October 2025, a Los Angeles jury awarded $966 million to the family of Mae K. Moore. After reviewing court documents in the case, the jury answered “yes” to the question “Do you find by clear and convincing evidence that Johnson & Johnson acted with malice, oppression or fraud in the conduct upon which you base your finding of liability?”
In December 2025, a Baltimore jury awarded $1.5 billion to Cherie Craft, a Maryland woman diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma, the largest single-plaintiff talc verdict ever recorded. That same month, a Minnesota jury awarded $65.5 million to a mother of three with pleural mesothelioma. In February 2026, a Philadelphia jury found J&J liable for the death of Gayle Emerson from ovarian cancer. Emerson had used the company’s baby powder for more than 45 years. J&J now faces roughly 60,000 remaining talc-related claims in courts across the country, and it says it plans to appeal the Lozano verdict.
How Talc Exposure Leads to Mesothelioma
Asbestos and talc are both naturally occurring minerals. They often form closely together in the earth, creating a high risk of cross-contamination during mining. People who used talc-based powders regularly for years could have experienced repeated asbestos exposure unknowingly.
Inhaled asbestos fibers lodge in tissues in the body. Because these fibers don’t break down, over time they cause irritation, inflammation and cellular damage that can lead to cancers like mesothelioma. Pleural mesothelioma, the type Lozano developed, forms in the lining of the lungs and is the most common mesothelioma type.
Mesothelioma has a latency period of 20 to 60 years, so symptoms don’t appear until decades after exposure. People diagnosed today were often exposed to asbestos many years or even decades ago. It also helps explain why talc-related mesothelioma cases continue to rise despite J&J no longer selling talc-based baby powder.
