US Supreme Court declines J&J baby powder appeal, takes up H&M copyright dispute News
© WikiMedia (Austin Kirk)
US Supreme Court declines J&J baby powder appeal, takes up H&M copyright dispute

In an order list released Tuesday, the US Supreme Court declined to hear Johnson & Johnson’s appeal seeking to undo a $2 billion judgment over claims that their talc-based baby powder contained cancer-causing asbestos.

The pharmaceutical giant claimed that its due process rights were violated when lower courts consolidated 22 cases from 12 different states into a single Missouri jury trial. Johnson & Johnson also attempted to contest the judgment of $1.6 billion in punitive damages, claiming the 11:1 ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages was excessive. They asked the court to affirm the precedent set in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance v. Campbell, which would have imposed a fixed 1:1 ratio of punitive damages to compensatory damages for class action suits.

Respondents noted that the punitive damage amount had already been substantially reduced to account for the company’s lack of Missouri contacts. The jury originally awarded plaintiffs upwards of $3 billion in punitive damages. They also argued that jury instructions specific to each plaintiff cured due process issues that may have been caused by consolidation.

Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh recused themselves from this determination. As recently as 2020, it was reported that Alito owned stock in the company.

Tuesday’s order list also announced the court’s decision to hear oral arguments in Unicolors v. H&M, a copyright dispute that will determine whether the Swedish fast-fashion brand infringed on textile producer Unicolors copyrighted design, or whether the underlying copyright was invalid.

A jury initially found that H&M had willfully infringed on Unicolors’ copyrighted design, but the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the verdict because the Unicolors copyright application contained “known inaccuracies,” rendering it invalid. The Supreme Court limited their review of this case to the first question, which will address whether disputed copyright applications must be referred to the Copyright Office for judgments of fraud and material error.