The $966 Million Talc Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson for the Mesothelioma Death of Mae Moore, With the $950 Million Punitive Award Vacated by the Trial Judge in March 2026, Leaving a $16 Million Compensatory Judgment Headed for Cross-Appeals

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.