Johnson & Johnson will now need to defend its talc products in a Chicago court thanks to a ruling delivered by a federal judge, reported by Chemical Watch.

The plaintiff in this instance added Walgreens to the list of defendants and, given that the drugstore chain’s headquarters are located in a Chicago suburb, that was sufficient grounds to proceed in a local court, said District Judge Jorge Alonso.

While Judge Alonso agreed with the US baby care manufacturer that the addition of Walgreens was designed solely to allow proceedings to take place in Chicago where a jury may be biased in favour of a resident plaintiff, Johnson & Johnson had failed to prove that the addition of the drugstore chain to the list of defendants was ‘utterly groundless’.