Abbott Laboratories must pay $53 million in compensatory damages in four cases in which Chicago area babies developed a dangerous intestinal disease after consuming the company’s formula for premature infants, a Cook County jury decided Thursday evening.

After a monthlong trial and a little more than a day of deliberation, the jury found Abbott liable on three counts for each child. The jury found that the formula was defectively designed, that Abbott failed to adequately warn about the dangers and risks of the formula and that Abbott was negligent.

Two of the children will get $15 million, one child will get $16 million and a fourth will receive $7 million. They’re receiving the money for pain and suffering and loss of a normal life, among other things.

The jury will reconvene Friday to consider how much Abbott should pay in punitive damages.

The cases were brought by mothers Antonia Mendez, Casie Thompson, Kara Sharpe and Eboni Williams, whose children were born before 32 weeks gestation at Chicago-area hospitals between 2012 and 2019. Three of the children had to have surgeries as infants because of their illnesses, and all of them continue to struggle with gastrointestinal issues, an attorney for the mothers said during trial.

The mothers and their attorneys declined to comment after the decision Thursday evening. Williams sobbed in court as the verdict was read.

An Abbott spokesperson did not provide comment by deadline Thursday.

The verdict is another blow for north suburban-based Abbott in its ongoing legal battle over whether its specialized formula for premature babies causes necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a disease in which the lining of the intestine becomes inflamed and dies. The disease is often fatal in babies born prematurely.

The four cases decided Thursday are among more than 1,700 Abbott faces across the country over the issue, and were the first to go to trial in state court in Illinois.

Lawsuits against Abbott over the matter had only gone to trial twice before, with one resulting in a $495 million verdict against the company, and the other in a win for Abbott.

The CEO of Abbott previously suggested the company could pull its formula for preterm infants altogether if Abbott continued to face litigation — a prospect that doctors worry would mean fewer nutritional options for preterm babies.

Abbott has maintained for years that its preterm infant formula does not cause NEC.

Research shows that there’s an association between cow’s milk-based formulas for preterm infants and higher rates of NEC, but that does not mean that the formula causes the disease, Hariklia Karis, a partner with Kirkland & Ellis representing Abbott, argued during the Cook County trial.

Karis referenced a 2024 statement released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health, based on a working group report, that said, “Available evidence supports the hypothesis that it is the absence of human milk — rather than the exposure to formula — that is associated with an increase in the risk of NEC.”

During the recent trial, Karis argued that the four infants had a number of other conditions – such as being born prematurely and antibiotic use – that led to them developing the disease.

“These infants would have gotten NEC regardless of what they were fed,” Karis told the jury during the trial. “These children had conditions, many of them which exponentially increased their risk of NEC.”

Both Karis and an attorney for the mothers, Sean Grimsley, said that the formula should be the choice of last resort for preterm infants, if mother’s milk or donated breast milk isn’t available.

The American Academy of Pediatrics also released a clinical report this year that said preterm infant formula is recommended when a mother’s own milk and donated breast milk are not available.

“This product is critical to NICUs around the country,” Karis said. “Without this product, there is no last line of defense.”

The attorneys, however, offered different takes during the trial on whether the babies had access to donated breast milk.

Grimsley told jurors during the trial that Abbott’s preterm infant formula is “not safe.”

“Formula is harmful,” Grimsley told jurors. “It increases the risk of NEC. It caused and contributed to all four plaintiffs’ NEC.”

He also argued that Abbott should have warned about the increased risk of NEC on its labeling – saying that if the mothers had known the risk, they would have acted differently.

Karis, however, disputed that notion, saying a warning label wouldn’t have made a difference. She contended that parents don’t read labels of products in the hospital, and instead defer to doctors who are well aware of both the protective nature of breast milk and the dangers of NEC.

Though the jury decided on four cases Thursday, a number of others have also been filed in Cook County Circuit Court, and hundreds of similar cases have been filed in federal court in Chicago.

Four of those federal cases were chosen as bellwether cases, meaning their outcomes are meant to help guide how all the other cases in federal court in Chicago might proceed, and/or how to settle those cases. So far, three of those federal bellwether cases were thrown out before they went to trial. The fourth is scheduled to go to trial in July.

Abbott is appealing the $495 million verdict reached against it in Missouri state court in 2024. In the other Missouri state court case, in which Abbott and another manufacturer of preterm infant formula, Mead Johnson Nutrition, were found not liable, a St. Louis judge later granted a motion for a new trial citing “errors and misconduct.” Abbott is also appealing that decision.

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