It won't be dismissed out of hand because there is a colorable legal argument assuming the necessary facts and some (very weak) evidence that can be proferred f

It won't be dismissed out of hand because there is a colorable legal argument assuming the necessary facts and some (very weak) evidence that can be proferred for each of the necessary facts, which is pretty much all that is necessary to get to trial if you are committed and not worried about winning. If the strategy is to get a settlement without agreement to fault extracting a bit of money to avoid the cost of litigation and use that also as a political hammer to reinforce the popular perception that the claim of a link is true, I can certainly see it being (despite being wildly unethical, an abuse of public office, etc.) an understandable course of action (I don't think it ultimately works even there, unless there is also separate corrupt pressure to settle by people abusing government, perhaps federal, offices in different ways—but that is also a possibility—because even a no admission of guilt settlement becomes hard for J&J publicly if even meaningful moves public perception.) I don't think there is much chance that they win a verdict at trial and survive appeals on it, but... that doesn't have to be the goal.