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Mealey's Asbestos

  • January 14, 2025

    Pennsylvania Judge Molds Verdict, Handing J&J Win In Asbestos-Talc Case

    PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania judge molded an inconsistent verdict in favor of Johnson & Johnson, wrapping a more-than-monthlong trial that included a break for the holiday season by handing the company and various of its entities a defense verdict in the asbestos-talc case.

  • January 14, 2025

    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.

  • January 14, 2025

    Employers Not Liable For Science Teacher’s Meso, Scottish Judge Says

    EDINBURGH, Scotland — While a science teacher’s work likely included handling asbestos-containing products, the evidence does not establish that the exposures exceeded that required to cause her mesothelioma and does not rise to the level required to hold her employers liable, a judge in a Scottish court said.

  • January 14, 2025

    Talc Plaintiffs Won’t Renew Pro Hac Vice Status Of Lawyer After Nixed $260M Award

    PORTLAND, Ore. — A couple who saw their $260 million asbestos-talc award wiped away by an order finding “too many violations of the Court's orders by plaintiff's counsel to easily count” withdrew a motion to renew the attorney’s pro hac vice status in Oregon after Johnson & Johnson objected to the move.

  • January 10, 2025

    Memory Expert, Missing Evidence Central To Delaware Asbestos Case Developments

    WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware judge excluded a memory expert in an asbestos pipe case, saying that while a company may challenge testimony, it may not do so through expert opinions because the testimony trespasses on the jury’s role of determining witness credibility.  Meanwhile, the plaintiff in the case moved for an adverse instruction about missing evidence, saying a company “born under the specter of asbestos” should have known that it would face litigation, a move J-M Manufacturing Co. Inc. (JMM) portrayed as a coordinated effort to hamstring its ability to raise a defense.

  • January 09, 2025

    Man: ‘Discovery Fraud’ Should Make Court Reconsider Asbestos-Talc Judgment Ruling

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — An asbestos-talc defendant secured jurisdictional dismissal on the basis of “ongoing discovery fraud,” a man told a Connecticut judge on Jan. 8 in a motion seeking to reargue a decision not to open judgment for the company.

  • January 09, 2025

    Punitives, Bankruptcy Docs At Issue As Pittsburgh Asbestos Case Briefing Wraps

    PITTSBURGH — In post-trial briefing, an employer hit with $1.5 million in punitive damages told a Pennsylvania judge that the statute of repose should have barred the case, that there was insufficient evidence that it acted in a way that warranted the award, that the jury was improperly instructed on the issue and that a court ruling improperly handled expert testimony and access to bankruptcy trust documents.  But the couple awarded the $3.8 million mesothelioma verdict said the statute of repose does not apply to workplace safety claims, that there was ample evidence that the company breached its duty to workers and that its request for the bankruptcy filings was untimely.

  • January 09, 2025

    Mandatory, Standardized Asbestos-Talc Testing Proposed By FDA

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Talc-containing cosmetics would undergo standardized and mandatory testing designed to identify the presence of asbestos under a rule proposed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

  • January 08, 2025

    Pipe Maker Opposes Reopening Expert Discovery In Asbestos Case

    OAKLAND, Calif. — An asbestos pipe defendant told a California judge that it diligently pursued experts for its defense and that it would be prejudicial to reopen expert discovery simply because the plaintiffs did not exhibit the same behavior.

  • January 08, 2025

    Degree Of Difficulty In Asbestos-Talc Case At Issue In Briefing Over Costs

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A talc defendant and a widow have wrapped briefing in a case in which $7.5 million in punitive damages have been awarded; the defendant indicated that it will appeal.

  • January 06, 2025

    Judge Won’t Recuse From Asbestos-Talc Law Firm Spat

    MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama federal judge on Jan. 3 declined to recuse himself from a law firm’s suit alleging breach of contract involving a partner’s handling of asbestos-talc claims involving Johnson & Johnson and its debtor affiliate, saying his former work for the firm did not bring his impartiality into question.

  • January 06, 2025

    Cape Asbestos Assets Receiver: Fines, Prison Threatened After English Ruling

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — An English law firm is threatening imprisonment and fines for a receiver’s “tortious conduct” and contempt of an English court ruling, the man appointed to handle a foreign company’s assets in South Carolina asbestos litigation told a judge in the state.

  • January 03, 2025

    FTCA Asbestos Trial Ends In Judgment For United States

    SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington entered judgment for the United States after a bench trial in a Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) case involving home-based asbestos exposures originating from a shipyard, finding that alleged violations of regulations permitted the case to proceed to verdict but that a daughter could not establish sufficient causation for take-home or environmental claims related to her mother’s mesothelioma.

  • January 03, 2025

    5th Circuit Won’t Revive Asbestos Trust Expert’s Negligence Claim

    NEW ORLEANS — An asbestos expert failed in his effort to have the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals revive his negligence case against a company that performed an audit of his B-reader results that resulted in him being excluded from asbestos bankruptcy filings.

  • January 03, 2025

    New York Court Reverses Ruling In Figure Skater's Asbestos-Talc Suit

    NEW YORK — A New York appeals court reversed a ruling denying Johnson & Johnson summary judgment in an asbestos case, saying a figure skater’s epidemiologist’s concession that many variables went into a person’s total dose of exposure did not sufficiently refute evidence that the company’s product could not have caused his mesothelioma.

  • 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.