The TYLENOL MAFIA: Marketing, Murder, and Johnson & Johnson by Scott Bartz

Author:Scott Bartz [Bartz, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat
Publisher: New Light Publishing
Published: 2011-09-23T00:00:00+00:00

On November 15, 1988, Judge Gerhard Goettel dismissed Elsroth’s liability lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson, McNeil Consumer Products, and the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company (A&P). “The companies could not be held responsible for the action of “an unknown third party” or for “a wrong that they did not truly commit,” wrote Judge Goettel. The Elsroth family never even got their day in court.

In ruling to dismiss the case, Judge Goettel wrote: “The murder remains unsolved, and it has not been determined conclusively how the product was tampered with. The most likely scenario appears to be as follows: An unknown third party purchased or stole the Extra-Strength Tylenol ...breached the packaging, and substituted cyanide for some of the medicine contained in several of the gelatin capsules… That individual replaced the now contaminated capsules in the container and somehow was able to reseal the container and box in such a way that the tampering was not readily detectable.”

Goettel came to this conclusion with no rational explanation of just how someone did all that. In fact, a little common sense would have led Goettel to conclude that this scenario was absurd and could not have been true at all.

Judge Goettel said the case left “difficult questions regarding the extent to which society is prepared to hold manufacturers and retailers liable for product tampering by unknown third parties.” The injustice of Goettel’s ruling is that the “unknown third party” who poisoned the Tylenol was not unknown. The tampering occurred at the warehouse of a repackager that had contracted with Johnson & Johnson to repackage the Tylenol. Diane Elsroth’s family would have “known” the identity of that third party repackager if the FBI had not put a stop to Carl Vergari’s investigation.

Diane’s father, John Elsroth, filed the product liability lawsuit against J&J and A&P. He may not have known it, but he had many things going against him when his lawsuit went before Judge Goettel. For starters, Johnson & Johnson had brought in its longtime go-to outside council, Patterson, Belknap, Webb & Tyler (PBWT) to handle the case. In addition, Elsroth was on Johnson & Johnson’s home turf - the Federal District Court in the Southern District of New York. This court was, and remains, one of PBWT’s favorite recruiting grounds. Many PBWT lawyers began their careers as law clerks for judges in the District Court in the Southern District of New York.

The relationship between Johnson & Johnson and PBWT began during World War II, when Robert Wood Johnson II was a “dollar-a-year man,” commissioned as a Colonel and then promoted to a brigadier general in the United States Army. At the time, Robert P. Patterson, Sr., the co-founder of Webb, Patterson & Hadley, which later became PBWT, was the under secretary of war. Since 1940, Patterson had been in charge of the war procurement program that Robert Wood Johnson II and other corporate titans managed as members of the War Production Board. Patterson was later appointed secretary of war in 1945. He returned to his private law practice in 1947.

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