An Illinois appeals court on Friday hit the reset button on a high-profile wrongful-death case over preterm infant formula, tossing a $60 million jury verdict that had gone to the mother of a baby who died of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC). The ruling sends the case back for a new trial and undercuts what had been an early, big-ticket victory for plaintiffs, stirring fresh uncertainty around hundreds of similar lawsuits across the country.
The Fifth District Appellate Court reversed the March 2024 St. Clair County verdict in Watson v. Mead Johnson Company, LLC, finding that the trial judge gave jurors the wrong legal roadmap on the company's duty to warn. The instructions, the panel said, should have focused on what Mead Johnson owed to treating physicians rather than to the infant's mother. The opinion and docket listing are available from the Illinois Appellate Court, and the reversal was reported by Reuters.
Where This Fits In The Wider NEC Litigation
The case is one of many tied to allegations that cow's milk-based preterm formulas heighten the risk of NEC in premature infants. More than 700 federal lawsuits have been grouped in a multidistrict litigation proceeding in Illinois, according to the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. Plaintiffs have already landed sizable state court wins, including a $495 million jury verdict in Missouri in 2024 and a $70 million Cook County award in April 2026, outcomes that have helped set expectations around potential settlements, as reported by KFF Health News.
Appeals Court Reasoning And Who Was In The Room
The appeals panel zeroed in on whether the jury received the correct legal standard for a manufacturer's duty to warn, and it ordered a new trial so that question can be tested again under proper instructions. Reuters reports that Mead Johnson was represented on appeal by Paul Schmidt of Covington & Burling, while plaintiff Jasmine Watson was represented by Sean Grimsley of Olson Grimsley.
Background: Watson, Chance Dean And The Science Fight
The lawsuit stems from the death of infant Chance Dean, who was born preterm in March 2020 and later developed NEC, according to reporting from ABC News. Manufacturers have defended their products by pointing to ambiguous or limited evidence on causation and to the clinical judgment of neonatal care teams, an argument that has landed differently with courts and juries from case to case, as chronicled in investigative coverage by KFF Health News.
What Is On The Line Going Forward
Legal observers say the ruling could reshape how plaintiffs frame negligence and failure-to-warn theories across the NEC multidistrict litigation. Many of the suits rise or fall on whether additional warnings to doctors, rather than to parents, would have realistically changed in-hospital feeding decisions. That question connects directly to what evidence judges allow about alternatives to cow's milk formulas and whether hospitals had practical access to human-milk-based options, a core dispute in MDL pretrial battles before the panel and the transferee court.
The appeals court's decision sends Watson's case back to the trial court for further proceedings and is expected to prompt fresh briefing over jury instructions and what evidence the next jury will hear. The appellate docket lists the matter as Watson v. Mead Johnson Company, LLC, No. 05-24-0936, according to the Illinois Appellate Court.
