On the heels of a game-changing defense verdict last month, Johnson & Johnson came out swinging on Tuesday in the fifth trial over the safety of its talcum powder, with the company’s lead defense attorney telling a Missouri jury to prepare for a showdown.
“This is going to be a fight, and it’s going to be a fight because it’s a serious thing being accused of a product that causes ovarian cancer,” Orlando Richmond of Butler Snow’s Jackson, Mississippi, office told the jury in opening statements, which were made available on Courtroom View Network. He criticized the “unfounded” and “unfair” allegations that had been “carefully crafted” in a case made of “bubble gum and tape.”
