J&J Talc MDL: Judge Orders Plaintiffs to Prove Cancer Link — Or Lose 69,000 Cases

The plaintiffs’ bar has spent years pushing a tsunami of talc litigation through the courts, and this week a federal judge finally asked the question that should have been asked long ago: can you actually prove causation?

On July 22, U.S. Magistrate Judge Rukhsanah Singh of the District of New Jersey issued a show cause order putting approximately 69,000 plaintiffs on notice — back up your expert opinions that J&J talc caused your ovarian cancer, or risk dismissal. The order follows bellwether testimony in May from two of plaintiffs’ own causation experts, Judith Wolf and Daniel Clarke-Pearson, who admitted under oath that they could not completely rule out other possible causes of the plaintiffs’ ovarian cancer.

“These are some of the critical challenges that raise deep skepticism that a plaintiff can proffer admissible expert opinion to support a finding that talcum powder use specifically caused her ovarian cancer,” Judge Singh said. “If such uncertainty is indeed reality, then how can any plaintiff here meet her burden on the merits of her claim?”

That is exactly the right question. Plaintiffs’ lawyers have weaponized made-for-litigation science to manufacture mass tort cases while hiding weak evidentiary foundations behind high case volumes. The talc MDL is a textbook example.

Plaintiffs now have until November 19 to explain why their cases should survive.