A bankruptcy judge allowed Johnson & Johnson to use chapter 11 to drive a settlement of litigation linking its baby powder to cancer, backing a controversial tactic that has helped profitable companies freeze roughly a quarter of a million injury lawsuits.
Judge Michael Kaplan of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Trenton, N.J., ruled Friday against personal-injury lawyers who asked to throw out the chapter 11 filing of a J&J subsidiary created last year to move into bankruptcy about 38,000 pending lawsuits over allegedly dangerous talc-based products.
