A New Jersey appeals court on Tuesday threw out a $223.8-million verdict against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) that a jury had awarded to four plaintiffs. These plaintiffs had claimed that they had developed cancer from being exposed to asbestos in the company’s talc powder products.

The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division found that a lower court judge should not have allowed some of the scientific expert testimony the plaintiffs had presented to jurors at the trial.

J&J General Counsel Erik Haas said in a statement that the decision “resoundingly rejects ... the ‘junk science’ advanced by purported ‘experts’ paid by the mass tort asbestos bar”. The company again said that its talc products were safe and did not contain asbestos.

A lawyer for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The jury in the case had ordered the company to pay $37.2 million in compensatory damages and $750 million in punitive damages, though that amount was automatically reduced to $186.5 million under State law.

In reversing the verdict and ordering a new trial, a three-judge panel of the appeals court found that the trial court had failed to fulfil its “gatekeeping role” of assessing whether the plaintiffs’ experts had based their testimony on sound science.

In their opinion, the judges had found that the three experts had not explained the facts or methods they had used to support their opinions that the plaintiffs had got cancer from being exposed to asbestos in talc products.

J&J is separately suing one of those experts, Jacqueline Moline, over a study that she had co-authored in 2019. That study was not at issue in Tuesday’s decision.

Ms Moline, who has testified for plaintiffs in more than 200 talc cancer cases, has argued that the lawsuit is an effort to “intimidate” scientific experts and prevent them from testifying against the company.

Tuesday’s ruling comes after the company in July had failed for a second time to move tens of thousands of claims over talc into bankruptcy court, where it had hoped to resolve them through a proposed $8.9-billion settlement.