The Philadelphia jury deliberating in the first punitive damages trial over the drug Risperdal needs to use its verdict to send pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson a message, an attorney representing a man injured by the medication said Tuesday.

"What happens today will have long-reaching consequences, in Philadelphia, in the nation, and, literally, from this little room in 275 [of Philadelphia City Hall], around the world," Kline & Specter attorney Thomas R. Kline told the jury, which has presided over the trial since mid-September. "We've tried for years, collectively, to change their behavior, but you 12 individuals, as a jury speaking as one, have that power."

The case, Murray v. Janssen Pharmaceuticals, marks the first time a Pennsylvania jury has been able to consider awarding punitive damages in a Risperdal case. Although the case initially came to a $1.75 million compensatory damages verdict in 2015, Murray was allowed to proceed to a punitive damages phase after the Pennsylvania Superior Court last year reversed a lower court's ruling that barred recovery on punitive damages claims.