Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) is going to have to pay a man $8 billion following a lawsuit surrounding one of its drugs.
The drug behind the lawsuit is Risperdal. This is used to treat a variety of issues, such as being bipolar and irritability connected to autism. The issue in this lawsuit is that one man claims that the drug resulted in him developing gynecomastia, which caused him to grow breast.
This lawsuit is actually an extension of one from back in 2015. That lawsuit saw the man being awarded $680,000 by a judge. The current lawsuit has a jury awarding the man punitive damages of $8 billion from JNJ.
JNJ isn’t happy about this decision and plans to fight it. The company points out that the heavy charge is well beyond a double digit multiplier of the original fee. It argues that this goes against normal proceedings and will push back against the payout.
While it’s likely that a judge will come in to lower the fee for JNJ, it may not be as much as the company hopes. Some judges and juries choose to hit companies with large fines to make and example out of them. That could be what happens here.
It’s also worth pointing out that this lawsuit isn’t the only one that JNJ is facing over this issue. However, these other lawsuits aren’t able to reach class action status. Instead, each person will have to present proof that they were negatively affected by Risperdal, reports Forbes.
JNJ stock was down 2.40% as of Wednesday afternoon.
As of this writing, William White did not hold a position in any of the aforementioned securities.
