By Dietrich Knauth

NEW YORK A U.S. judge on Friday shot down Johnson & Johnson's second attempt to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits over its talc products in bankruptcy, imperiling a proposed $8.9 billion settlement that would stop new lawsuits from being filed.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael Kaplan in Trenton, New Jersey, ruled that J&J company's second bankruptcy, like its first, must be dismissed because the company was not in "financial distress."

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth; editing by Jonathan Oatis)