Johnson & Johnson’s bankrupt subsidiary won court permission to set a price tag on mass litigation linking the company’s talc-based baby powder to cancer, the latest setback for injury claimants who argued the estimation would be “a road to nowhere,” WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Judge Michael Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., said yesterday that he has retained an outside expert to conduct an independent valuation of the roughly 38,000 cancer lawsuits pending against J&J and its talc subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, as well as any additional injury claims that could be brought against the company. The expert, lawyer Kenneth Feinberg, has mediated some of the largest product-liability cases in U.S. history, including the $20 billion settlement related to the BP PLC oil spill. Feinberg is slated to issue a report before Judge Kaplan rules on how much talc-injury claimants are owed. LTL has said estimating the valuation of the lawsuits would move its chapter 11 case forward and foster settlement talks to help resolve the litigation. Judge Kaplan agreed, saying yesterday that Feinberg’s report would aid settlement discussions and rejecting injury claimants’ argument that an estimation proceeding would stall the case. Judge Kaplan said that he wouldn’t set a deadline for Mr. Feinberg to produce his report but that he anticipates he will receive the report “before the weather starts getting cold.”
