Ark. court rejects $1.2 billion Risperdal verdict

(Bloomberg) — Johnson & Johnson has persuaded the Arkansas Supreme Court to throw out a $1.2 billion award against the drugmaker over the company’s marketing of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal.

A majority of Arkansas’s highest court concluded today that state officials relied on the wrong law to challenge J&J’s Risperdal marketing campaign, and that a judge erred in setting the $1.2 billion in fines for violations of the state’s Medicaid fraud statute.

The appeals court said Arkansas officials wrongly attempted to use a law governing health-care facilities as the basis for sanctions over J&J’s allegedly misleading marketing of the medication.