Connecticut Jury and Judge Award $25 Million to Mesothelioma Patient in Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder Case
After trial: The jury awarded $15 million in compensatory damages in October 2024, and the judge added $10 million in punitive damages on October 1, 2025. Johnson & Johnson has appealed, and we found no appellate decision.
Won by Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP.
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.
What happened
Evan Plotkin, an artist and father of three from Somers, Connecticut, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2021, at age 64. Mesothelioma is a cancer of the lining of the lungs that is tied to asbestos exposure. He and his wife, Martha Barry-Plotkin, sued Johnson & Johnson and several related entities that year in Connecticut Superior Court in Bridgeport.
Plotkin's case was that he had used Johnson's Baby Powder on himself beginning in the 1950s, and that his own children were dusted with it through the 2000s. He argued that the talc came from mines containing tremolite asbestos, and that the company knew its talc could be contaminated and never warned consumers. Johnson & Johnson denied that its powder contained asbestos and argued that Plotkin's disease came from other sources.
The trial ran from September 10 to October 15, 2024, and was the first cosmetic talc trial against Johnson & Johnson in Connecticut. Trey Branham of Dean Omar Branham Shirley led the plaintiffs' team, and Benjamin Braly delivered the closing argument. The jury heard from pathology, pulmonology, electron microscopy, geology and statistics experts for the plaintiffs, while Johnson & Johnson called its own pathologist.
On October 15, 2024, the jury found the defendants strictly liable and negligent, and found that they had failed to warn of the danger. It awarded $15 million in compensatory damages. It also found the company's conduct reckless, intentional, malicious and extremely reprehensible, which under Connecticut law left the amount of punitive damages to the judge.
The judge issued that ruling on October 1, 2025, adding $10 million in punitive damages. The total came to $25 million. Branham said Plotkin and his lawyers were grateful the judge had read the opinion and done what the judge thought was right. Erik Haas, Johnson & Johnson's worldwide head of litigation, said the company would immediately appeal what it called erroneous rulings that kept critical facts from the jury.
The verdict was the fourth against Johnson & Johnson in a talc mesothelioma trial in 2024, following earlier plaintiff verdicts in Illinois, Oregon and South Carolina. Johnson & Johnson has appealed the Connecticut judgment.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Connecticut Public, 'CT judge issues $25M judgement against Johnson & Johnson', Oct. 3, 2025·Archived copy
- 2.Courtroom View Network, '$15M Awarded in Connecticut's First J&J Cosmetic Talc Trial', Oct. 2024·Archived copy
- 3.Goldberg Segalla Asbestos Case Tracker, 'Connecticut Jury Awards $15 Million Talc Verdict', Oct. 2024·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP
All Dean Omar Branham Shirley, LLP proven verdicts →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.
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.
Related product liability verdicts
A federal jury found that R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company had defectively designed Salem cigarettes and awarded Barbara Izzarelli nearly $8 million; punitive damages and years of accruing interest, upheld on appeal and left standing when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, eventually brought the total to $52.3 million.
A retired Connecticut school principal who developed invasive breast cancer while taking Wyeth's hormone drug Prempro won a $5.8 million failure-to-warn verdict that the trial judge refused to cut.
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