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2007-06-18 17:20 (New York)
By Lindsay Fortado and Jef Feeley

June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Two Johnson & Johnson units should pay "millions of dollars'' to the family of a Florida man who died after a patch designed to deliver measured doses of pain-killing drugs leaked, a lawyer told a Florida jury.

Executives at Johnson & Johnson's Janssen Pharmaceutica Products and Alza Corp. subsidiaries knew some of the patches were defective and continued to sell them anyway, Jim Orr, a lawyer for the family of Adam Hendelson, told jurors today during closing arguments in West Palm Beach federal court. Hendelson, 28, was using the patch to treat pain from a 1996 car accident.

"We believe millions of dollars is appropriate'' to compensate the Hendelsons over the loss of their son, Orr said. "Whether that's $5 million or $3 million or $10 million is in your hands.''

The Duragesic case is the first to reach trial in federal court. It's also the first to come before a jury since a 2006 Houston state court jury said that Janssen and Alza must pay $772,500 to the family of a Texas woman who died after her patch leaked. The companies appealed the verdict. Johnson & Johnson, the world's largest medical device maker, had $1.29 billion in worldwide sales of the patches in 2006.

A lawyer for the Johnson & Johnson subsidiaries told jurors in his closing argument that Hendelson's family didn't produce any evidence of leaks in the patch that their son, a computer technician, was wearing when he died.

"If there was no defect in the actual patch that was there, it was not the cause of Mr. Hendelson's death,'' said Anthony Upshaw, a Miami-based lawyer representing the companies.

Shares of New Brunswick, New Jersey-based Johnson & Johnson fell 44 cents to $62.33 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 5 percent so far this year.

The case is Lee Hendelson v. Janssen Pharmaceutica Products LLP and Alza Corporation, CA No. 05-8116, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida (West Palm Beach).

--With reporting by Justin Blum in Washington. Editor: Rovella