At some point the US court system needs to examine the timeliness of judgements as a core component of justice. It's wild that J&J can hold off the lawsuits for <i>years</i> while it's tries dodgy shell games to offload the legal liability. It's twice as insane for the slimey J&J guy to then come out and say "Oh well the passage of time means..". Yes, the passage of time means that all the people that J&J gave cancer will be dead long before a single penny of compensation will be paid. It's also wild that the judge has decided to re-open the examination of evidence based on a recent rule change approved by the supreme court. It's almost like their spurious corporate bullshit bought them enough time to <i>literally change the rules</i> around their case. Good thing the supreme court is above the suspicion of being bribed though.<p>Here's a simple question: If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it.
In theory we should put all this money towards welcoming scientific study. In fact I’m sure chemical analysis would be far cheaper than lawyers. Does talc really cause cancer or not ? My understanding is that it is a bit like vermiculite insulation, which on its own it’s completely fine, but most vermiculite mines are naturally “contaminated” with asbestos.<p>Wouldn’t it be great if we knew what about talc caused cancer and we could make it safe and have use of it without fear? Probably 3% of the money spent on litigating all this could have gotten us good testing and an industrial process to produce clean talc.<p>Unfortunately, I think that, this isn’t that - J&J wants to obfuscate the science and get off the financial hook :(<p>And what the hell is the “revised standard” that j&j lawyers feel they can now meet? That sounds like the con of the century.
For cases like this where the judgement depends heavily on currently-unknown science, I think courts should be able to order scientific studies be done (and paid for the same as other court costs).<p>The study would then be commissioned by, and report to, the judge - rather than the prosecution or defence, who both obviously want to hire experts who will see everything from their point of view.