Levy Konigsberg LLP

A Manhattan jury found in May 2019 that asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower caused Donna Olson's pleural mesothelioma, awarding $25 million in compensatory damages and $300 million in punitive damages, the largest talc verdict in New York history. Jerome H. Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case. The trial court cut the award to $120 million in November 2020, and on July 19, 2022 the Appellate Division, First Department reversed outright and directed judgment for Johnson & Johnson, holding that the plaintiffs' medical expert never gave a scientific expression of the minimum lifetime exposure needed to cause the disease.

Moshe Maimon of Levy Konigsberg led the trial team that won a $117 million verdict for Stephen Lanzo III, the first jury finding that Johnson & Johnson talc caused a plaintiff's mesothelioma. The New Jersey Appellate Division reversed the judgment in April 2021 over inadmissible expert testimony, and no retrial or final resolution has been publicly reported since, with J&J's talc bankruptcy filings stalling the litigation for years.

A Boston jury awarded $43.1 million on October 12, 2018 to the widow and son of Louis Summerlin, a former brake mechanic and lifelong menthol smoker who died of lung cancer in 2015 at 73, finding R.J. Reynolds' Salem and Kool cigarettes defectively designed and the company guilty of fraud, while clearing Philip Morris and an auto parts distributor. Jerome Block of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Michael Shepard of Shepard Law. It was the first trial in the country to take a lung cancer claim to verdict against both tobacco and asbestos defendants, and the largest verdict in New England that year.

In the first consolidated multi-plaintiff talc trial, a Middlesex County jury awarded $37.3 million on September 11, 2019 to four people who developed mesothelioma after their parents powdered them with Johnson's Baby Powder as children, and a second jury added $750 million in punitive damages in February 2020, which Judge Ana Viscomi cut to $186.5 million under New Jersey's five-times cap. Moshe Maimon of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Chris Placitella and Chris Panatier. On October 3, 2023 the Appellate Division reversed every judgment and ordered new trials, holding that the trial court had admitted three plaintiffs' experts without the gatekeeping New Jersey law requires.

A Bergen County jury awarded $30,312,204 in February 2008 to the family of Mark Buttitta, who died of mesothelioma at 50 after breathing asbestos fibers his father carried home from GM parts warehouses and after his own college summers working there. Moshe Maimon of Levy Konigsberg tried the case, and the New Jersey Appellate Division affirmed the full award on April 5, 2010.

An Alameda County jury found on March 13, 2019 that asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder caused Teresa Leavitt's mesothelioma and awarded $29.4 million in compensatory damages, assigning 98 percent of the fault to Johnson & Johnson. Moshe Maimon of Levy Konigsberg tried the case with Joseph Satterley of Kazan McClain Satterley & Greenwood. It was the first talc trial to reach a verdict after the December 2018 press reports that the company had known of asbestos in its talc for decades. The California Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment in full on August 5, 2021.

A Manhattan jury awarded $16.5 million on April 7, 2017 to the family of Florence Nemeth, a Long Island woman who died of peritoneal mesothelioma after eleven years of daily use of Desert Flower dusting powder made with talc supplied by Whittaker, Clark & Daniels. James Kramer, Robert Komitor and Nicholas Novack of Levy Konigsberg tried the case, the first cosmetic talc mesothelioma verdict in New York. The Appellate Division upheld liability in 2020 and set the net judgment at $3.3 million, but on April 26, 2022 the Court of Appeals reversed and dismissed the case, holding that the plaintiff's experts never established that she was exposed to enough asbestos to cause her disease.

A Schenectady County jury found R.T. Vanderbilt Company liable on February 10, 2015 for the mesothelioma death of Richard Chisholm, an Indiana man who handled the company's Gouverneur, New York talc as a teenager working summers at an Ohio ceramics plant in the late 1970s, and awarded his widow and three children $10.55 million. Levy Konigsberg represented the family. The award was reported as the largest asbestos verdict in the history of upstate New York; Vanderbilt's post-trial motions were argued in November 2015 and no later ruling or appeal has been publicly reported.

On November 24, 2015, a Manhattan jury awarded $7 million to the estate of Joan Robusto, a Long Island woman who died of mesothelioma at 76 after years of daily use of Desert Flower dusting powder, finding the talc supplier Whittaker Clark & Daniels liable in the first New York trial over asbestos in a cosmetic talc product. Levy Konigsberg tried the case. On June 20, 2019 the Appellate Division, First Department reversed and dismissed the complaint, holding that the plaintiff's causation expert had described only unspecified detectable or significant asbestos exposure rather than a level sufficient to cause the disease.

A Syracuse jury awarded $7.7 million in December 2014 to Mary Nash, whose husband Lewis drove school buses for the Fayetteville-Manlius district for nearly four decades and died of mesothelioma at 81 after years of breathing asbestos dust from Navistar brakes and gaskets serviced in the district garage. Levy Konigsberg tried the case against Navistar, the sole remaining defendant, and it was reported as the largest asbestos verdict in Syracuse history. In November 2017 the Appellate Division cut the pain and suffering award in half and the wrongful death award to $270,000, leaving $3.47 million.