The Fourth District Court of Appeals in California, in its April 11 ruling, reduced the size of the civil penalties against J&J’s Ethicon subsidiary by $42 million. The reasoning was that Ethicon couldn’t be fined over oral communications because there was no evidence of what its employees actually said in one-on-one communications with doctors.
However, the appeals court allowed most of the penalties levied by the Superior Court in San Diego County to stand, with J&J expected to pay the state $302 million.
The appeals court disagreed that the fines were excessive, noting that $302 million makes us less than 0.5% of Johnson & Johnson’s net worth.
A J&J spokesperson told media outlets that the company plans to app…