Johnson & Johnson is responsible for the ovarian cancer that killed an Alabama woman and the company will pay her family $72 million, a Missouri jury has decided.

This is the first baby powder cancer lawsuit in which Johnson & Johnson will provide monetary compensation on behalf of an alleged victim, The Washington Post is reporting.

Even though Jacqueline Fox died in the fall at the age of 62, the jury had the opportunity to hear a taped deposition of Fox explaining how she used Johnson’s Baby Powder and its Shower to Shower product for feminine hygiene for 35 years.

In her deposition, she said that she believed that it was these baby powder products made by Johnson & Johnson that caused her to develop the ovarian cancer that took her life.

Fox was one of more than 1,200 women who have filed baby powder lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson alleging that the company’s talc-based products caused them to develop ovarian cancer. They claim that Johnson & Johnson failed to warn them about the cancer risk linked to talc, which is the main ingredient in its baby powder and Shower to Shower products.

The Missouri jury decided that Johnson & Johnson will pay $10 million to Fox’s family in actual damages and $62 million in punitive damages, for a total of $72 million. The $62 million is $1 million for each year of Fox’s life, the jurors said. Of that $72 million, $31 million will go to the Missouri Crime Victims’ Compensation Fund, one of Fox’s attorney’s told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Imerys Talc America, who was the other defendant in the lawsuit, was not found to be at fault.

The trial lasted more than three weeks and the jury deliberated for about five hours on Monday. The 10-2 decision was delivered at about 10:15 pm Monday night.

One juror by the name of Jerome Kendrick told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that he decided in favor of Fox’s family based on internal memos from Johnson & Johnson that were presented during the course of the trial.

One of these memos allegedly showed that Johnson & Johnson officials were aware of the link between their baby and body powder products in the 1990s. When accusations were made about the link between Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder products and cancer, the company would reportedly respond by citing a study that was dated back to the 1970s.

Kendrick said that those memos “pretty much sealed my opinion. They tried to cover up and influence the boards that regulate cosmetics.”

He added that “they could have at least put a warning label on the box but they didn’t. They did nothing.”

After Fox died, her son Marvin Salter became the lead plaintiff in the baby powder cancer lawsuit. He said that he was genuinely shocked by the monetary damages, but he praised “how groundbreaking this could be for so many other women.”

According to The Washington Post, Johnson & Johnson is expected to appeal the jury’s decision.

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement following the verdict that they still stand by “the safety” of “cosmetic talc,” which the company says “is supported by decades of scientific evidence.”

A Johnson & Johnson medical consultant said in 1997 in one of the memos presented as evidence at the trial that denying the link between “hygienic” talc and ovarian cancer is like denying the link between cigarettes and lung cancer.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch also reported that after the public was becoming more aware of the link between talc-based powders and ovarian cancer, Johnson & Johnson’s sales were starting to drop. In response, the company decided to target more blacks and hispanics in their advertising campaigns.

Fox was black.

A biopsy of Fox’s ovaries by a pathologist found them to be inflamed from talc.

Talc is a naturally occurring mineral that is used in several cosmetic products.

If you believe you developed ovarian cancer as the result of using Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder products, fill out the form on this page for a free case evaluation.