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Mealey's Asbestos

  • December 20, 2024

    Family Says Texas Court Didn’t Ditch Causation Standard In Asbestosis Case

    HOUSTON — Asbestosis is a unique disease that requires a huge dose of exposure and doesn’t occur idiopathically, and an opinion reversing a summary judgment ruling based on direct evidence of exposure from a single source doesn’t rewrite the state’s causation law, a family tells the Texas Supreme Court.

  • December 20, 2024

    Cape Asbestos Plaintiffs Dismiss Suit After Removal, Jurisdiction Challenge

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — A group of more than 150 plaintiffs who sued Cape LLC and various related entities over an alleged scheme to sell asbestos in the United States while plotting to avoid liability voluntarily dismissed the action without prejudice after one of the defendants removed the case and asked for dismissal on jurisdictional grounds.

  • December 19, 2024

    Johnson & Johnson Can’t Swap Entities As Defendants, R.I. Judge Says

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Plaintiffs are ultimately the masters of their complaints and may sue who they see fit, a Rhode Island judge said in denying LLT Management LLC’s and Johnson & Johnson Holdco Inc.’s motion to substitute two related entities they claim now hold asbestos-talc related liabilities.

  • December 18, 2024

    Contempt, Stay At Issue In Asbestos Expert Subpoena Case

    NEW YORK — An asbestos expert, her hospital employer and Johnson & Johnson, locked in a battle over production of the identities of individuals the expert relied on in a study on talc exposures, briefed a New York Supreme Court justice on whether contempt sanctions are warranted for failure to produce evidence or whether a forthcoming motion to reargue and a pending motion for a protective order stayed an appellate court’s ruling, according to documents filed on the court’s docket.

  • December 18, 2024

    Facing Asbestos Trial Delay, Judge Advances Hearing On Reopening Expert Discovery

    OAKLAND, Calif. — After a couple warned that experts on both sides of an asbestos case are unavailable and that continuing with the existing schedule would threaten to delay the case, a California judge issued a tentative ruling advancing a hearing on reopening expert discovery.  Separately, the plaintiffs appealed a decision granting summary judgment to asbestos fiber supplier Union Carbide Corp.

  • December 18, 2024

    Talc Company Calls Arguments For Reopening Case ‘Hollow,’ ‘Legally Meaningless’

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A distribution agreement that will allegedly now show connections to Connecticut has been in the plaintiff’s possession the entire time; an unpublished and not final South Carolina court ruling finding fraud does not warrant reopening the case; and arguments to the contrary are “hollow and legally meaningless,” a talc company tells a Connecticut judge.

  • December 17, 2024

    Experts, Punitive Damages At Heart Of Connecticut Motions After $15M Talc Verdict

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A man urged a Connecticut judge to impose punitive damages in the wake of a $15 million verdict, saying that Johnson & Johnson (J&J) knew for decades about the dangers of asbestos and that there were asbestos fibers in its talc products but continued marketing a product that would be used on children.  But in a trio of briefs, J&J and its various entities said the verdict resulted from improper court decisions on the admission of experts, wrongly given instructions and belabored references to other litigation the company faces.

  • December 17, 2024

    Plaintiff/Defense Experts Testifying Since Jan. 1, 2002

    The following is a listing of plaintiff and defense experts who testified in trials covered by Mealey's Litigation Report: Asbestos since Jan. 1, 2002.

  • December 17, 2024

    Third-Party Defendant Escapes Shipyard Asbestos Suit

    NEW ORLEANS — A third-party asbestos defendant secured summary judgment in a federal suit in Louisiana after the judge concluded that a previous settlement between the plaintiff and the company precluded the action but that the opinion didn’t prevent the shipyard that brought the claims from seeking virile share contribution at trial.

  • December 17, 2024

    J&J Opposes Pro Hac Vice Status In Wake Of Conduct Behind New Trial Order

    PORTLAND, Ore. — Johnson & Johnson entities urged a judge not to renew the pro hac vice status of plaintiff attorney Ben Adams citing the failure to heed court orders and other misconduct that a trial court judge found reached such a level that it likely influenced the jury and required retrying a case that produced a $260 million asbestos-talc verdict that originally included $200 million in punitive damages.

  • December 16, 2024

    U.K. Insurer Wins Stay Of Arbitration In Reinsurance Billings Dispute

    NEW YORK — Saying in part that the U.S.-based defendant didn’t show “by a preponderance of the evidence that an agreement to arbitrate exists between the parties,” a New York federal judge cited “New York state law” in granting a U.K.-based insurer’s petition to stay arbitration.

  • December 12, 2024

    No Cert Petition Planned For Dismissal Of J&J Spinoff’s 2nd Chapter 11 Case

    TRENTON, N.J. — There will be no U.S. Supreme Court petition filed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LLT Management LLC over the second dismissal of its Chapter 11 case, the Official Committee of Talc Claimants told a New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge in preparation for a hearing to decide if the case should be closed.

  • December 12, 2024

    Insurer Seeks Summary Judgment Argument In Asbestos Coverage Row

    OMAHA, Neb. — National Indemnity Co. (NICO) has moved in Nebraska federal court for oral argument on pending motions for partial summary judgment in its suit to enforce obligations by defendants it calls reinsurers — one of whom is now insolvent — for liability NICO incurred related to claims for asbestos exposure.

  • December 11, 2024

    Judge Faults Lawyer Misconduct, Grants New Trial After $260M Talc Verdict

    PORTLAND, Ore. — Failure to heed court orders and other misconduct reached the level that it likely influenced the jury and requires retrying a case that produced a $260 million asbestos-talc verdict that originally included $200 million in punitive damages, an Oregon judge said in granting Johnson & Johnson entities’ motion.

  • December 11, 2024

    South Carolina Judge Orders New Asbestos-Talc Trial Over Withheld Evidence

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — Asbestos-talc companies filed a notice of appeal of a ruling finding that an attorney responsible for discovery committed fraud and “intentionally concealed documents” detailing sales of products, which a judge in South Carolina said in granting a new trial could have impacted the jury’s verdict in the companies’ favor.

  • December 11, 2024

    Son Takes Organ Loss Asbestos Case To Delaware Supreme Court

    WILMINGTON, Del. — The son of a man injured at work appealed a Delaware state court decision affirming a ruling by the state’s industrial board that credited an employer’s expert’s impairment rating, a conclusion he said the court reached by ignoring that the workers’ compensation statute considers even partial loss of use of a body part a permanent loss.

  • December 10, 2024

    Plaintiff: Evidence Of Fraud Warrants Hauling Talc Company Back Into Suit

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A Connecticut court should reopen a judgment dismissing asbestos-talc claims on jurisdictional grounds in the wake of evidence directly contradicting statements its counsel made in briefing about its presence in the state, a plaintiff tells a judge in a Dec. 9 memorandum.

  • December 06, 2024

    After Supplemental Briefing Judge Remands Shipyard Asbestos Exposure Case

    SEATTLE — A complaint contained nothing that started the clock on removal, but that removal was premature because of the lack of any details linking a man’s allegedly fatal asbestos exposures to boilers supplied to a shipyard for Navy use, a federal judge in Washington said in remanding a case after supplemental briefing on the matter.

  • December 06, 2024

    Pennsylvania Top Court Agrees To Hear Corporate Veil Asbestos Liability Cases

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to weigh in on whether suits against a lawfully dissolved limited liability company that are otherwise barred by state law can be revived by piercing its corporate veil and whether doing so promotes justice when there were reasonably foreseeable asbestos claims that could not be compensated.

  • December 06, 2024

    Product ID Part Of Evidence Keeping Boiler Company In New York Asbestos Case

    NEW YORK — A boiler company’s argument that it didn’t manufacture the type of boiler that allegedly exposed a man to asbestos merely points to holes in man’s ability to link it to the product and does not warrant summary judgment in light of his product identification testimony, a New York justice said in denying the motion.

  • December 06, 2024

    J&J Contract Talc Manufacturer Stuck In New York Asbestos Suit

    NEW YORK — A talc manufacturer’s arguments about contract specification and the lack of evidence about exposures merely points to holes in a woman’s case and does not eliminate the possibility of liability, a New York justice said in denying summary judgment.

  • December 04, 2024

    Judge Grants Contempt Hearing In Asbestos Dispute Over Expert Moline, Northwell

    NEW YORK — A New York justice on Dec. 3 issued an order scheduling a show-cause hearing on a motion seeking to hold an asbestos expert and her employer in contempt of court for “brazenly” ignoring court rulings after the state’s high court denied leave to appeal a decision compelling production of the identities of participants in expert Jacqueline Moline’s asbestos-talc studies.

  • December 03, 2024

    Plaintiff/Defense Experts Testifying Since Jan. 1, 2002

    The following is a listing of plaintiff and defense experts who testified in trials covered by Mealey's Litigation Report: Asbestos since Jan. 1, 2002.

  • December 03, 2024

    Angelos, Asbestos Claimants Resolve Asbestos Malpractice Claims For $57M

    BALTIMORE — A judge in Maryland granted final approval of a $57 million settlement resolving asbestos claimants’ legal malpractice claims stemming from Law Offices of Peter G. Angelos PC’s failure to file timely actions after learning about insurance proceeds available in a settlement.

  • December 03, 2024

    Union Carbide Prevails In Rare Rhode Island Asbestos Trial

    PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A Rhode Island jury returned a defense verdict for Union Carbide Corp. in a case alleging that a woman died after asbestos exposure suffered when she laundered her former husband’s clothing; the trial is the first time an asbestos case in the state has gone to jury in nearly 40 years, sources told Mealey Publications.