Johnson & Johnson has been hit with a new lawsuit accusing them of fraudulently using bankruptcy to avoid paying the victims who got cancer from their deadly products. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: Johnson and Johnson’s been hit with a new lawsuit accusing ’em of fraudulently using bankruptcy to avoid paying the victims who got cancer, clearly got cancer, from their deadly product that they’ve known about for 50, 60 years. They’ve understood that what they were making would cause cancer in women. So, let’s talk about this lawsuit.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. This, to me, it’s absolutely a huge lawsuit because Johnson and Johnson, for many years now, after a stunning amount of courtroom humiliations with these talcum lawsuits, they go and they do what’s called the Texas Two Step. And that is you create a shell company that previously did not exist, and you spin off, you give the shell company all your liability saying, okay, we, the big Johnson and Johnson, we keep our billions of dollars, but this company now owns all the talcum litigation. And then that company that existed up, didn’t exist up until a day ago, they go to court, usually in Texas, very corporate friendly there and they go in front of the judge and they say, judge, uh, look, I’m poor little company here. I just started and now I’m facing tens of billions in lawsuits. I’m bankrupt. And those Texas judges will say, well, by golly, you are, you don’t have to do this. I’m so sorry for you, little company.
Mike Papantonio: Farron, it’s the equivalent of you being worth 400, you Farron Cousins, you are worth $450 billion, but you don’t want to pay $2 billion for something that you’ve, a horrendous issue that you’ve caused. So you don’t want to spend the 2, 3, 4, 5, $6 billion. You’re worth $450 billion. You know that you’ve killed people. You know that people are dying an awful death from cancer. And if you’ve ever done any research of what these women go through as they’re suffering for this cancer, I mean, the medical costs alone are in the millions every year. And the attentive care is, it just, but the problem is this is a company, and I think this lawsuit is gonna show this history, long history of fraud, all the way back to the time that they knew this was a problem. And so the fraud, virtually everything this company’s done becomes part of that fraud. You know, every element says, well, this you’re covering up and this you’re not completely telling the truth about to the American public. You’re not telling the truth to the courts. They’ve hustled the courts. There have been judges that, already a bankruptcy judge that was just attacked by the third circuit by saying, what in the hell are you thinking letting these corporate types get away with killing all these people? And just saying, well, we just can’t afford it anymore because we’ve moved all of our money, judge, we moved it into these fraudulent little holding companies. So we asked, and those fraudulent holding companies, when we moved it, we said, okay, little fraudulent company, you take responsibility for all of the future. And there’s not enough money to do it, you know?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: So this is important. The fellow that’s handling this, Andy Birchfield, has just been a warrior. They’ve done everything they can to get him kicked out of the case. I mean, you name it. They’ve done everything they can to make it difficult for this guy that’s been doing this now for 11 years.
Farron Cousins: Wow.
Mike Papantonio: He’s been fighting this war with Johnson and Johnson. This is after they were hit for $4.6 billion in a trial down in, just several years ago. So they’ve been hit time and now they’ve won a few. But after you’re hit for $4.6 billion, don’t you say, we must have done something wrong?
Farron Cousins: Right. And so the women that are involved in this lawsuit, obviously, because this is a class action, they’ve been victimized twice, right?
Mike Papantonio: Correct.
Farron Cousins: Because they got victimized with the product and then they got victimized again once this whole bankruptcy shenanigans took place. Is that what’s?
Mike Papantonio: That’s exactly it. Farron, you ought to be there talking to family members that have watched their mother or the sister die this horrendous death from the cancer. It’s, if it doesn’t bring tears to your eyes, there’s something inhuman about you. Well, this company, they’ve heard all those stories. But nevertheless, they’re doing everything they can to avoid just ponying up and paying what they should. They’ve offered money, but it’s not even close. The money they’ve offered is not even close to being able to pay for the damage they’ve done across this nation. And they have the ability to do it, but they just want to, let’s go to bankruptcy court. Let’s hide our money with these little fraudulent companies. This lawsuit is going to tell a big story. I promise you.
Farron Cousins: Well, best of luck with it. I really hope that this changes the way this works here.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
