Jinsook Ohta

As a consumer protection lawyer, Supervising Deputy Attorney General Ohta has taken on big business before. With four other states, she sued Dish Networks for violations of do not call laws and won a $53 million judgment for California in 2017.

But the bench trial she concluded in September over Johnson & Johnson's allegedly defective pelvic mesh implants eclipses even that. "The largest example of what I do is the Johnson & Johnson litigation and trial," Ohta said. She spoke in November, a day after she and her colleagues had filed the post-trial briefing requested by San Diego County Superior Court Judge Eddie C. Sturgeon.

"So the agonizing wait begins today," Ohta laughed. The judge said he'd try to have a decision by December.

Ohta in her closing argument asked for $700 million in penalties from Johnson & Johnson for allegedly misrepresenting the safety of its mesh implants to doctors and their patients.

"J&J deceptively marketed its surgical mesh devices as safe with minimal risk when in fact these devices exposed women to a host of dangerous complications," Ohta's complaint contended. The risks, the complaint added, included chronic pelvic pain, permanent urinary and/or defecatory dysfunction, pain with sexual intercourse and/or loss of sexual function and the potentially irreversible nature of those complications. People v. Johnson & Johnson, 37-2016-00017229-CU-MC-CTL (San Diego Super. Ct., filed May 24, 2016).

Johnson & Johnson's Ethicon unit argued that it adequately informed doctors and patients about the risks and that the devices are safer than invasive surgeries.

Ohta said she learned about the dangers of mesh implants in the course of her work and launched an investigation.

"One of the most rewarding aspects of my job is the ability to bring investigations and litigation on behalf of the people," she said. "The egregiousness of the defendant's deceptive marketing was compelling enough to warrant law enforcement attention."

In her opening statement, she asserted that Ethicon "chose to deceive doctors and patients" about the possibility that a chemical in the mesh, polypropylene, to react adversely with bodily fluids and tissue that can lead to chronic inflammation and scarring. "[They] blamed the doctors, blamed the women, blamed the surgery, they blamed everything they could think of besides the mesh itself."

A similar Washington state suit over the mesh implants settled earlier this year on the eve of trial for $9.9 million. Thousands of individual suits have been filed across the U.S.

With the trial behind her, Ohta said she and her husband are set to vacation in Australia and New Zealand. Then it'll be back to work.

"This was a monumental effort on both sides," she added. "I had the help of several extremely passionate, dedicated and talented attorneys in our consumer protection unit."

-- John Roemer