J&J Hid Asbestos Testing of Baby Powder with Confidentiality Order In a bombshell news report, Reuters details how Johnson & Johnson knew about tests that asbestos contaminated their baby powder since the 1970s, and yet hid it from the public. Asbestos history is a sordid affair of lies and cover-ups, in which corporations were willing to kill for profit. J&J has started losing trials to local attorney Mark Lanier (who puts on a wonderful trial advocacy clinic we attended), and the facts are now coming out. J&J apparently exposed the entirety of America to asbestos through its baby powder. J&J’s relied on flawed testing methods, while hiding their own smoking gun test results. Even when it came out in litigation, they designated the documents confidential to hide test results from the public. Read for yourself. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/

The federal government employs a lot of people, and at times those federal employees are negligent and cause damage. Many people think it is impossible to sue the federal government for money damages – and as a general rule, they are correct. The doctrine of sovereign immunity prevents suits against the sovereign (in this case the democratically elected government, where traditionally sovereign immunity applied to kings and queens) unless the sovereign decides it wants to be sued for certain things. When the federal government is involved, the law that allows the government to be sued for money damages for causing injuries is the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA). It is a blanket waiver of immunity – meaning that it opens the government up to lawsuits in federal courts, without juries, with some strict procedural requirements ....

Businesses are staffed by people, and people have flaws.  Sometimes employees and even managers attack a customer or another employee and cause major injury.   Victims suffer pain and disfigurement, along with the indignity of a public beating.  Customers end up in the hospital, but are left with permanent injuries that never go away and hefty medical bills.