Olson Grimsley Secures Landmark $60 Million Verdict in Nation’s First Preterm Infant Formula Trial

On March 13, 2024, the trial team of Sean Grimsley, Kenzo Kawanabe, Abby Hinchcliff, Samara Hoose, and Beth Costner achieved a groundbreaking $60 million trial victory against Mead Johnson Nutrition, the manufacturer of Enfamil Premature Formula. The case is the first of thousands of cases pending nationwide to reach a verdict regarding whether makers of cow’s-milk based formula are responsible for causing necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in premature infants. 
 
The St. Clair, Illinois jury returned the verdict after less than two hours of deliberation and awarded our client, Jasmine Watson, $60 million in compensatory damages—more than twice the amount we requested. Under Illinois law at the time of filing, Ms. Watson could not request punitive damages.

Our firm was retained as lead trial counsel less than one month before the four-week trial. We were proud to partner at trial with Ben Whiting, Amelia Frankel, and their incomparable team at Keller Postman LLC, as well as the exceptional Dave Cates of The Cates Law Firm, LLC, to achieve this historic result. The Keller Postman team filed the case and did an incredible job preparing it for trial. 

“We are grateful that Jasmine has finally received some measure of justice,” Grimsley said. “Chance should still be alive and, as we argued and the jury found, would be if he had not been fed Mead Johnson’s cow’s milk-based preterm formula.”
 
Read more from Reuters: https://lnkd.in/gDSQuKbT