J&J tried to get a federal judge to block the publication of the Reuters story

February 4 (Reuters) – Johnson & Johnson tried to get a US judge to block Reuters from publishing a story based on what it said were confidential company documents about the health giant’s legal maneuvers to fight lawsuits claiming its Baby Powder caused cancer.

“The first change is not a license to knowingly break the law,” the company said in a submission to the US Bankruptcy Court in New Jersey late Thursday, in which a unit of J&J had filed for bankruptcy protection while defending the Baby Powder lawsuits. The first amendment to the US Constitution protects press freedom.

On Friday, Reuters reported that J&J secretly launched “Project Plato” last year to shift responsibility from around 38,000 ongoing Baby Powder talc lawsuits to a newly formed subsidiary, which was then to be declared bankrupt. By doing so, J&J can limit its financial exposure to the lawsuits.

Following the publication of the story, Reuters asked the American bankruptcy judge Michael Kaplan to reject J & J’s proposal, and claimed that it was controversial. Less than an hour after Reuters sent the letter, J&J said in a submission that they were withdrawing a request for an immediate hearing on the case, but that they were not willing to agree that the request regarding the documents was controversial.

J&J said in its archive after the publication of the story that it intends to continue discussions with Reuters, saying that it was “encouraged that the publication of confidential documents is no longer imminent.”

J & J’s request to block publication was “among the most extraordinary remedies a judicial party can request under the law,” lawyers for Reuters, a unit of Thomson Reuters, said in a lawsuit Friday. The news agency’s lawyers called J & J’s request a “prior restraint of speech on a matter of public interest.”

J&J said that Reuters had obtained documents that were protected against public disclosure of an order from Kaplan. The company demanded that Reuters return the documents and refrain from publishing information taken from the documents.

“This is a complex case that should be heard by the court – in a forum where both sides present their cases in an appropriate setting – and not quarreled through the media,” a J&J spokesman said in a statement Friday.

Reuters denied that they have confidential information, and said in court documents that the confidentiality of one of the documents was revoked in January and that the other is not in Reuters possession.

J & J’s (JNJ.N) LTL unit filed for bankruptcy in October to resolve allegations that J & J’s talc-based products contained asbestos and caused mesothelioma and ovarian cancer. read more

J&J claims that their consumer talk products are safe and have been confirmed to be free of asbestos.

The company has said it bankrupted LTL to settle these claims instead of suing them individually. It has stated that resolving these requirements through Chapter 11 is a legitimate use of the restructuring process.

Talc plaintiff committees argue that J&J should not be allowed to use bankruptcy to take up the talc case, and that by doing so it deprives plaintiffs of the day in court.

Reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware and Maria Chutchian in New York; editing by Amy Stevens and Rosalba O’Brien

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