The man walked up to the register of a major chain drugstore in Oregon, his arms loaded with Motrin.

"Bad headache," he chuckled, but the girl at the counter didn't seem interested. She cracked her gum as she ran his twenty or so boxes across the checkout reader.

"See you later," he said, gathering up the plastic bags, knowing he would never set foot in that store again. Back outside in the mid-day sun, he carefully opened his car door and forced the two new bags in with the hundreds of bags full of Motrin already crammed in his back seat.

It had been a busy day.

Well, that's how I like to imagine it went down, anyway.

I'm talking about Lynn Walther, the man who blew the whistle after being hired by Johnson & Johnson to secretly buy up all the defective Motrin he could get his hands on.

In June 2009, disturbed by the instructions he'd been given by J&J, Walther faxed those instructions to Oregon pharmacy regulators. He didn't hear back, but his deed launched a federal investigation.

It turns out that J&J found out at the end of 2008 that the Motrin capsules sold in 8-packs had been screwed up -- they didn't dissolve properly and were therefore pretty much worthless for relieving pain. They allegedly told regulators this wouldn't hurt anyone, but that it could lead to a worsening of pain and inflammation. And sure, they launched a recall -- a year later, and only after feeling the heat from regulators.

And now they're being sued by Oregon Attorney General John Kroger for about 800 violations of state law, which could add up to more than $200 million in fines.

I guess they weren't thinking about that back when they launched their grand plan. Apparently, company officials sent around emails patting everyone on the back, proclaiming their sneaky actions a "major win."

The "great Motrin caper" for which J&J is being sued now took place in 2009. But, mere days into 2011, they're dealing with more problems with their products. Citing bad cleaning procedures at one of their plants, they've recently recalled almost 50 million packages of OTC drugs. This is on top of the 200 million recalled in the past year.

So, I guess this year isn't shaping up to be any better than the last couple for them.

You might be able to find their products on nearly every shelf in the drugstore, but do you still trust this so-called "family company"?

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