> such high punitive damages

J&J's annual revenue is $70B so $55M is what, 0.07% or something like that? They probably spend more on refilling their vending machines.

Or let's put it another way. Say you are making $100K, it would be like paying one $70 fine for giving someone cancer. A speeding violation will be more than that in most states.

Revenue is not profit.

Neither is base salary.

As a sibling post mentioned already, your base salary is not pure profit either. Most goes to mortage payments, car payments, taxes etc. It is still a worthwhile comparison I think.

compared to what financial institutions are fined, sans killing anybody, this is nothing.

They knew talc caused cancer and not only covered it up, but turned their marketing to groups less likely to know about it. It's worse than the tobacco coverup, because everybody knew cigarettes were bad for you, just not how bad they actually were.

> but turned their marketing to groups less likely to know about it

It does appear that way, but it's not true. The marketing was simply toward those who buy it more often that's all.

Knowingly selling a dangerous product is bad enough (it says not to inhale the dust - how exactly are you supposed to use it without making dust?), but let's not criticize them for things that are not real.

How can J&J cover that up? Do they control that research? Were they interfering somehow (hush money, that sort of thing)?

Talc is an ancient, traditional material. They never hid the fact that their powder is made of talc. (And that is the selling point. I wouldn't buy some starch-based substitute myself.)

Alcohol turns to acetaldehyde, which is carcinogenic. Thus, sue the fuck everyone who produces wine, whisky, beer, sauerkraut or fermented anything. They are all covering it up by not mentioning cancer on their label!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talc#Food_grade : The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers talc (magnesium silicate) to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for use as an anti-caking agent in table salt in concentrations smaller than 2%.

I believe that is exactly what punitive damages are. J&J caused harm. Since it's not a criminal case, the punitive damages are punishment and a deterrent for them and others not to harm consumers.

Why can't it be a criminal case when people got really hurt?

Compare it with someone who forged a $100 bill a few times and went to jail for 20+ years.

the law sees the first as a small negligence, and the counterfeiter as soneone undermining State power.

In criminal cases the measure of guilt is strict, in tort it's usually more relaxed.

It's not like 55 million dollars is much for a company this size.

The article says there are around 1,200 such cases pending... that's a lot of money for any company

But certainly far less money than they made

If the implication is that they made more than $66BB USD in profit from the sale of talcum powder, I think you're overestimating dramatically.

JNJ's total annual earnings is around $15BB (from all products).

JNJ's total annual sales of talcum powder are around $400MM. It would take them ~150 years to SELL $60BB of talc, let alone have that amount of profit from talc.

Note that Johnson & Johnson have been selling cosmetic talc since 1893.