A U.S. judge almost halved the award in a December jury verdict that ordered Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and its DePuy Orthopaedics unit to pay more than $1 billion to plaintiffs in six lawsuits who said they were injured by DePuy’s Pinnacle hip implants.
U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade in Dallas cited “constitutional considerations” that limit how much plaintiffs may recover in punitive damages but upheld the jury’s findings that the implants were defectively designed and that the companies failed to warn consumers about the risks.
