Insights & Events

Law360 published an article by Hollingsworth LLP attorneys Joseph F. Altieri and Sally H. Levin examining the strategic lessons from Johnson & Johnson’s (“J&J”) $5.5 billion settlement resolving approximately 70,000 claims alleging that its talcum powder products caused ovarian cancer. The article explains how J&J paired rigorous Federal Rule of Evidence 702 (“Rule 702”) challenges to plaintiffs’ causation experts with a show-cause strategy modeled on a Lone Pine case-management order. This approach reshaped the risk calculus in the multidistrict litigation (“MDL”) and this strategy offers lessons for other product liability and mass tort matters.

The article traces the Rule 702 turning point in the litigation: after plaintiffs withdrew their key causation experts following extensive Rule 702 hearings, J&J moved for an order to show cause why the MDL should not be dismissed, arguing that no expert could reliably establish specific causation for any plaintiff’s ovarian cancer. The article details the evidentiary deficiencies the court identified, including the experts’ inability to rule in or rule out individual risk factors or explain whether those factors acted cumulatively, additively, or synergistically, and the court’s resulting “grave doubt” that any plaintiff could offer admissible specific causation evidence.

Drawing on that record, the article offers several considerations for companies and defense counsel in mass tort litigation, including: that expert admissibility should be a focus from the inception of a case; specific causation is subject to the same Rule 702 reliability requirements as general causation and should be raised early; building a record testing expert methodology in bellwether and early proceedings can shape how courts and opposing counsel evaluate similar claims across an MDL; and that inconsistent jury verdicts underscore, rather than substitute for, the need for rigorous judicial gatekeeping.