A new judge has been assigned to oversee tens of thousands of lawsuits in New Jersey federal court against Johnson & Johnson over its talc products, two weeks after an appeals court rejected the company's plan to offload the claims into bankruptcy, Reuters reported. U.S. District Judge Michael Shipp, based in Trenton, will take over the long-running litigation from former Chief District Judge Freda Wolfson, who retired from the bench on Feb. 1, according to an order filed on Monday. The cases, numbering more than 38,000, had been on hold since October 2021, when a J&J subsidiary newly created to hold the talc liabilities filed for bankruptcy. Plaintiffs have said that J&J's Baby Powder and other talc products contain asbestos and caused cancer. J&J maintains its consumer talc products are safe and confirmed through thousands of tests to be asbestos-free. The company has said it will challenge the ruling by the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissing the bankruptcy, which it said was intended in good faith to resolve talc claims efficiently and equitably.
