The ruling centres on marketing practices for a kind of medical device that has prompted years of personal injury litigation and billions in payouts.
Johnson & Johnson should pay $344 million in damages because the company deceptively marketed transvaginal pelvic mesh implants to tens of thousands of women in California, a judge ruled Thursday.
Johnson & Johnson said it intended to appeal the ruling, which it said “disregards” the company’s compliance with federal regulations.
The judgment was framed as a civil penalty against the company related to sales practices for its pelvic mesh products, which have been the subject of years of personal injury litigation from women who used them to treat a condition called organ prolapse. The total payouts by a handful of the mesh manufacturers to injured women now tally about $8 billion.
The ruling, by Judge Eddie Sturgeon of San Diego Superior Court, was less than the $800 million in damages the state had asked for last year at trial. California’s attorney general first filed this deceptive marketing lawsuit in 2016.
The award was more than twice the size of the $117 million settlement J&J reached to resolve claims by 41 states and the District of Columbia for similar deceptive marketing accusations arising from the sale of pelvic mesh products by the company’s Ethicon division.
“Johnson & Johnson knew the danger of its mesh products but put profits ahead of the health of millions of women,” said the attorney general, Xavier Becerra.
