CVN screenshot of plaintiff attorney Patrick Wigle delivering his opening statement
Portland, OR - An Oregon state court jury heard opening statements Tuesday in one of the first cosmetic talc trials involving Colgate-Palmolive’s Mennen brand, and the full trial is being webcast and recorded gavel-to-gavel by Courtroom View Network.
Plaintiffs Quang Quach and his wife Thanh-Ha Dinh sued Colgate after Quach was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma - a rare form of cancer frequently associated with asbestos exposure - at the age of 43. He blames exposure as an infant to Mennen’s Baby Magic talcum powder for his illness, but Colgate’s attorneys maintain Quach’s cancer resulted from exposure to asbestos fibers his father brought home while working on car brakes as a garage mechanic, among other factors.
The full trial, believed to be among the first to go before a jury involving Mennen products, is available both live and on-demand via CVN, which has similarly covered many of the cosmetic cases around the country since they began going to trial roughly a decade ago.
Plaintiff attorney Patrick Wigle of Waters Kraus Paul & Siegel told the Multnomah County county jury that Colgate, which acquired The Mennen Company in 1992, knew for years that talcum powder used in its cosmetic products like baby powder contained asbestos but failed to warn consumers.
Wigle blamed Mennen’s supposedly inadequate testing standards for allowing talc laced with asbestos to reach store shelves, and he accused the company of not doing its due diligence in vetting the testing standards of talc suppliers like Whittaker Clark & Daniels, which filed for bankruptcy in 2023 citing their exposure in cosmetic talc litigation.
“No warnings were given. Mennen continued selling talc products,” Wigle argued. “Mennen’s talc specification was too insensitive to detect the low levels of asbestos contamination, and because Mennen chose to ignore the hazard people like Mr. Quach were exposed to toxic dust when they were babies.”
Wigle preemptively addressed the defense argument that exposure to asbestos-containing brake dust from his father’s garage caused Quach’s cancer, telling jurors one of Mennen’s own expert witnesses would testify that level of exposure was too low to pose a health risk.
Wigle didn’t ask for a specific amount of damages in his opening statement, but he did tell jurors the total would reach “millions and millions of dollars” citing the fact mesothelioma is a terminal form of cancer and patients often experience extremely painful symptoms as the disease progresses, along with Dinh's loss of consortium claims.
Representing Colgate, defense attorney Michael Brown of Nelson Mullins began his opening by explaining that the US Environmental Protection Agency allows up to 7 million fibers of asbestos per liter of drinking water and telling jurors that no US government agency or public health authority ever concluded that cosmetic talc causes cancer.
CVN screenshot of defense attorney Michael Brown delivering his opening statement
Brown then focused on the fact Quach originally sued a number of companies in his lawsuit, including Johnson & Johnson and eight separate brake companies, despite Colgate being the sole remaining defendant in the case. He urged jurors to reject plaintiff arguments that brake dust exposure couldn’t have caused Quach’s cancer, arguing that Quach’s own attorneys made the opposite arguments in court filings while brake companies were still active in the case.
“People are claiming that they can be exposed to asbestos fibers just from doing laundry that were from a mechanic, yet you did not hear that from plaintiffs in their opening statement,” Brown emphasized.
He also argued that many cancers, including mesothelioma, are spontaneously and naturally occurring. He suggested that's one of the main reasons institutions like St. Jude's Children's Hospital exists.
The vast majority of cosmetic talc trials to date involved Johnson & Johnson’s products, and comparatively few have reached jury verdicts involving Colgate and other cosmetic talc purveyors. Both sides only briefly addressed Quach’s supposed exposure to J&J products during their opening.
On Tuesday in another talc trial covered by CVN a Massachusetts jury awarded $42 million to another man claiming he developed mesothelioma due to exposure to asbestos in cosmetic talc. Another is potentially set to begin in Los Angeles next week.
The Oregon trial is taking place before Judge Katharine von Ter Stegge, and CVN’s live and on-demand coverage will continue for the duration of the proceedings.
The case is captioned Quach v. Colgate-Palmolive under case number 23CV47469.
E-mail David Siegel at dsiegel@cvn.com
