$966 Million Talc Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson for a Mesothelioma Death, Punitive Award Vacated
After trial: The $950 million punitive award was vacated by the trial court in March 2026; $16 million in compensatory damages stands and cross-appeals are pending.
Won by Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP.
On October 6, 2025, a Los Angeles County jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $966 million to the family of Mae K. Moore, a mother of three who died of mesothelioma in December 2021 at age 88 after decades of using the company's talc-based Baby Powder and Shower to Shower. The award comprised $16 million in compensatory damages and $950 million in punitive damages, reported at the time as the largest talc-mesothelioma verdict ever returned against Johnson & Johnson. On March 13, 2026, the trial judge, Ruth Ann Kwan, vacated the entire $950 million punitive award, finding the malice showing insufficient, while leaving the $16 million compensatory judgment intact. Both sides have said they will appeal. Dean Omar Branham Shirley tried the case for the Moore family, and this page documents it as part of the public record.
What happened
Mae K. Moore used Johnson & Johnson's talc products for most of her life, from roughly the 1930s onward. In December 2020 she was diagnosed with mesothelioma, the cancer of the lung lining caused by asbestos exposure, and a year later, in December 2021, she died at age 88. In 2021 her three adult daughters, Joy Moore, Kathryn Pratt, and Carol Farquharson, sued in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleging their mother's cancer came from asbestos contamination in consumer talc products, principally Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower.
The case went to trial in fall 2025 before Judge Ruth Ann Kwan against a single defendant, Johnson & Johnson. Trial counsel for the family came from Dean Omar Branham Shirley, the Dallas firm whose docket that year included a string of talc-mesothelioma verdicts around the country. The trial team presented internal company documents and expert testimony aimed at showing Johnson & Johnson had long known its talc contained asbestos and kept selling it without warning. The jury answered every one of the roughly two dozen liability questions on the verdict form against the company: negligence, design defect, failure of the products to perform as an ordinary consumer would expect, and intentional concealment. Nonparty cosmetics companies whose products were also raised at trial, including Avon, Chanel, Colgate-Palmolive, and Revlon, were found not at fault, and Johnson & Johnson was assigned 100 percent of the responsibility.
On October 6, 2025, the jury awarded $16 million in compensatory damages: $6 million for Mae Moore's own suffering and $10 million to her three daughters. Then, finding by clear and convincing evidence that the company had acted with malice, oppression, or fraud, it added $950 million in punitive damages, bringing the total to $966 million. Coverage at the time described it as the largest verdict ever returned against Johnson & Johnson in a mesothelioma case tied to talc. The company immediately called the award egregious and unconstitutional and said it would appeal.
What happened next has to be stated just as plainly, because the largest piece of the number did not survive its first post-trial test. On March 13, 2026, Judge Kwan granted Johnson & Johnson's motion and vacated the entire $950 million punitive award. In her ruling she concluded the plaintiffs had not clearly and convincingly established that the company knew its products contained asbestos and failed to act, the showing California law requires before a punitive award can stand. The $16 million in compensatory damages was left in place.
Neither side treated that as the end. Lawyers for the Moore family, including Ben Braly of Dean Omar Branham Shirley, said they respectfully disagreed with the ruling and would appeal to reinstate the punitive award. Johnson & Johnson said it would appeal the remaining claims as well, including the causation finding behind the $16 million compensatory judgment. As of this writing, the public record therefore holds two numbers: the $966 million the jury awarded, and the $16 million judgment that currently stands while cross-appeals proceed. This page preserves the case as a documented court record, including what the trial court later took away.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP
All Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP proven verdicts →In July 2023, after a two-phase trial before Judge Cary Nishimoto in Los Angeles County Superior Court, a jury awarded roughly $107 million, $32 million compensatory and $75 million punitive, to the family of Joel Hernandezcueva, a janitor who died of pleural mesothelioma in 2014 in his mid-40s after asbestos exposure at the Park Place complex in Irvine. The jury found raw-asbestos supplier Union Carbide acted with malice and assigned it the largest share of fault. On December 12, 2023, Judge Nishimoto set the verdict aside in its entirety, granting judgment notwithstanding the verdict and a new trial on findings of juror misconduct, misconduct by plaintiffs' counsel, insufficient evidence, and excessive damages. Plaintiffs' counsel said they would appeal, and no published decision reinstating the verdict appears in the public record as of this writing. Dean Omar Branham Shirley tried the 2023 case, and this page documents it as part of the public record.
A Richland County jury awarded Michael Perry, a 53-year-old man diagnosed with mesothelioma, $63.4 million on August 15, 2024. The award was $32.6 million in compensatory damages plus $30 million in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson and $760,000 against American International Industries. Perry alleged asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder and other talc products caused his cancer. Johnson & Johnson said it would appeal.
A Portland jury awarded $34.2 million to Richard Long, a former Swan Island shipyard laborer diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, after hearing that John Crane Inc. knew its asbestos gaskets and packing were dangerous decades before it warned anyone who worked with them.
Evan Plotkin of Somers, Connecticut, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2021 and sued Johnson & Johnson, alleging decades of exposure to asbestos in its Baby Powder. A Bridgeport jury awarded $15 million in compensatory damages on October 15, 2024, and found the company's conduct warranted punitive damages. On October 1, 2025, the trial judge added $10 million in punitive damages, for a total of $25 million. Johnson & Johnson has appealed.
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