Johnson & Johnson faces an uphill battle to salvage its strategy for settling roughly 40,000 cancer lawsuits concerning its talc-based products through a subsidiary’s bankruptcy after a court rejected the company’s tactic, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit dismissed the chapter 11 case of J&J’s talc subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, and could force the consumer health giant to resume defending the mass personal injury lawsuits against it on a case-by-case basis, rather than through a single bankruptcy proceeding. J&J has long maintained its talc products are safe and won a majority of trials over the talc allegations. J&J has said that it would challenge the appeal’s court’s ruling. J&J has some avenues to challenge the decision dismissing LTL’s case, authored unanimously by a three-judge panel on the Third Circuit. The company has the right to ask all of the judges sitting on the appeals court to weigh in, a request that litigants often make in high-stakes cases. More than 20 appellate judges sit on the Third Circuit, according to the court’s website. It’s up to the Third Circuit to decide whether all of the judges on the appeals court will reconsider LTL’s case. The company can also request a stay of Monday’s ruling while appealing further.
