Leave it to corporations, even with the pressure of the civil justice system, to figure billions of ways to never say they are sorry — and to leave consumers hanging about problematic products and practices.
Johnson and Johnson just won a pyrrhic victory, prevailing in an appeals court, so a Missouri record $4.69 billion loss now has become $2.1 billion.
That is the sum the court said the company owed women who developed female reproductive cancers after long use of the company’s famed baby powder. J&J insists its product is safe. But the appeals judges, while reducing the award against the conglomerate, also affirmed that J&J knew its talc was tainted with cancer-causing asbestos.