Mealey's Asbestos : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Asbestos

May 07, 2024
Woman Defends South Carolina Asbestos Verdict From Causation, Other Challenges

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A trial featured expert testimony about the levels of asbestos a man encountered and that the exposures were sufficient to cause his disease, and the court should reject a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) in an asbestos case, a woman tells a South Carolina court in opposing the motion.
May 06, 2024
Receiver’s Asbestos Claims Process Survives Benzene Defendant’s Objection

MONROE, N.C. — A receiver’s proposal of how to handle thousands of asbestos and benzene claims of the now defunct Radiator Specialty Co. Inc. survived challenges by a sometime co-defendant claiming that the arrangement might leave it holding the bag in Pennsylvania litigation and where joint and several liability applies when a judge in North Carolina turned away the objections and adopted the suggested process.
May 02, 2024
In Disqualification Dispute, Talc MDL Parties Brief Exhibit’s Admission

TRENTON, N.J. — In letter briefing, Johnson & Johnson urged the asbestos-talc multidistrict litigation court to admit with only modest redactions an exhibit submitted in briefing on its motion to exclude an attorney and his law firm from the litigation, saying the law firm misstates and improperly expands a ruling finding the company waived certain protections.
May 02, 2024
Judge Denies Spoliation Sanctions, Stays Trial Pending Appeal

MISSOULA, Mont. — A federal judge overseeing a case involving BNSF Railway Co.’s handling of asbestos at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine denied the railway’s renewed motion for sanctions related to the failure to preserve the plaintiff’s remains and partially granted its request for bifurcated trial after a jury awarded $8 million to two individuals in a similar suit. On May 1, the judge stayed the May 6 trial pending an appeal of that verdict.
May 02, 2024
Johnson & Johnson Has New $6.5B Plan To Resolve Asbestos Talc Claims

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announced May 1 that it will pay nearly $6.5 billion to resolve all ovarian cancer claims through a prepackaged plan of reorganization for another subsidiary that will file for bankruptcy in Texas if the plan is accepted by asbestos talc claimants.
May 02, 2024
Asbestos-Talc MDL Judge Affirms Ruling Allowing Refiling Of Daubert Challenges

TRENTON, N.J. — A ruling allowing the refiling of Daubert challenges in the multidistrict litigation involving Johnson & Johnson talc doesn’t throw out a previous judge’s ruling but simply complies with the 2020 ruling’s recognition that the underlying science could change and acknowledges amendments to federal rules, a federal judge in New Jersey said in an unpublished memorandum denying reconsideration.
May 02, 2024
Disease Group’s Petition Is 4th To Challenge EPA Asbestos Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An asbestos disease awareness group is among the groups to have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent rule largely banning chrysotile asbestos, adding its petition in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to three similar petitions filed in the Fifth, Sixth and 11th circuits.
May 01, 2024
Judge Finds No Jurisdiction Over J&J Spinoff’s Talc Study Fraud Claims

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey courts lack jurisdiction over Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) former bankrupt affiliate LTL Management LLC’s fraud claims against three experts involving a study of mesothelioma patients allegedly exposed to asbestos in talc because even assuming that the article targeted the company without naming it, sending a computer file to a publisher and working as an expert in the state are too tenuous to establish jurisdiction, a federal judge in New Jersey said April 30 in dismissing the case.
May 01, 2024
9th Circuit Panel Affirms Dismissal With Prejudice Of UCL Asbestos-Talc Claims

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Plaintiffs in a class action “littered” a fifth amended complaint with descriptions of advertisements, but many appear unrelated to the asbestos-talc claims underpinning the California unfair competition law (UCL) allegations or lack the necessary evidence of reliance, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in an unpublished memorandum affirming summary judgment for the defendants.
May 01, 2024
Man’s Knowledge Of Railway Toxins Started FELA Clock, Ohio Court Says

TOLEDO, Ohio — A laryngeal cancer sufferer’s admission that he knew that he worked around potentially hazardous chemicals during his time at a railway and the available information on the hazards of asbestos and other toxins created a duty to investigate the cause of his disease and started the statute of limitations, an Ohio appeals court said in finding a Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) claim time-barred.
April 30, 2024
Judge Allows Asbestos Experts, Says Cross-Examination Can Explore Flaws In Testimony

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana denied a pair of challenges and admitted seven experts in an asbestos case set to go to trial in early May, noting that disagreements over whether social contacts or environmental exposures were the cause of a man’s fatal contact with asbestos went to the reliability of the evidence rather than its admissibility and any defects in the testimony could be exposed on cross-examination.
April 26, 2024
Illinois Court Affirms Asbestos FELA Verdict After Negligence, Witness Challenges

CHICAGO — Comments during closing statements about regulatory violations and the negligence standard in a Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) case involving asbestos exposure were only a small portion of the entire closing, and the trial court was best positioned to determine the proper remedy for a witness’s presence in the courtroom during trial testimony, an Illinois appellate court said in affirming a verdict.
April 25, 2024
Magistrate Judge Won’t Exclude Moline’s Supplemental Report In Asbestos-Talc Spat

NEW YORK — While disclosure of Jacqueline Moline’s 2023 study and her dose-calculation opinion were untimely, they were harmless because there is no evidence that her opinion changed, that the defendants were unaware of her opinions or that any prejudice the defendants would face cannot be remedied, a federal magistrate judge in New York said April 24 in denying a motion to exclude reliance on the supplemental material.
April 25, 2024
Judge Denies Spoliation Sanction, Will Bifurcate Montana Asbestos Trial

MISSOULA, Mont. — A federal judge overseeing a case involving BNSF Railway Co.’s handling of asbestos at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine denied the railway’s renewed motion for sanctions related to the failure to preserve the plaintiff’s remains and partially granted its request for bifurcated trial after a jury earlier this month awarded $8 million to two individuals in a similar suit.
April 24, 2024
Montana Jury Awards $8M In Pair Of Lawsuits Against BNSF

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A federal jury in Montana found that BNSF Railway Co.’s handling of asbestos at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine fell outside its duties as a common carrier and awarded $4 million to each of two plaintiffs who died as a result of their resulting exposures to asbestos.
April 24, 2024
Chicago Jury Returns $45 Million Asbestos Verdict Against J&J Entities

CHICAGO — An Illinois jury held Johnson & Johnson entity Kenvue Inc. 70% liable for a woman’s mesothelioma after finding that it and a second subsidiary could be responsible as a continuation of their parent company and awarding $45 million to her six children.
April 23, 2024
Florida Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Asbestos-Talc Trial

SARASOTA, Fla. — A Florida jury returned a defense verdict for Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on April 18, rejecting claims that its consumer talc contained asbestos that caused a woman’s fatal ovarian cancer, sources told Mealey Publications.
April 23, 2024
Deposition Evidence, Causation Before New York Court In Asbestos Case

NEW YORK — A New York appellate court now faces issues involving admission of a deposition a defendant did not attend but for which it was able to later cross-examine the witness, and whether the jury’s $15 million award was supported by expert causation testimony and sufficient.
April 23, 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.
April 22, 2024
Wide-Ranging Briefing Follows $10 Million California Asbestos Award

SAN FRANCISCO — Whether the regulatory environment put the owner of an automotive shop on notice of the dangers of asbestos and whether a court’s exclusion of interrogatory responses about the man’s other potential exposures and his teacher’s comments about his education came before a California appeals court in briefing on a host of issues.
April 22, 2024
J&J Stuck In Figure Skaters’ Asbestos-Talc Suit Alleging 20,000 Exposures

NEW YORK — Johnson & Johnson entities merely poke holes in a mesothelioma case brought by a makeup artist and figure skater alleging exposure to asbestos in talc on more than 20,000 occasions and do not eliminate the possibility of causation, as they must to prevail, a New York justice said in denying the companies’ motion for summary judgment.
April 19, 2024
Punitive Damages, Strict Liability Claims Survive In Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Evidence at an asbestos trial over exposures arising from a railway’s actions at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine creates a prima facie case for the railway’s strict liability for engaging in abnormally dangerous activities, and the company can face punitive damages for the conduct of its predecessors under Montana law because there was sufficient evidence at trial that they knew the risks of asbestos for the claim to go to the jury, a federal judge said in denying two motions for a directed verdict on April 18 and April 17.
April 19, 2024
Bar Date For Asbestos Claims Set In New Chapter 11 Case Of Niche Cosmetics Company

LOS ANGELES — A California federal bankruptcy judge has set a bar date for holders of asbestos claims to file proofs of claim in the new Chapter 11 case of professional cosmetics maker Ben Nye Co. Inc. over the objections of asbestos personal injury law firms and their clients in suits naming the debtor as a defendant.
April 18, 2024
Court: Positive Outlook Doesn’t Outweigh Disclosures In Asbestos Securities Class

NEW YORK — Even while putting a positive spin on Garrett Motion Inc.’s future, the company repeatedly warned investors about the dire financial situation posed by the asbestos-related liabilities it acquired in its spinoff from Honeywell International Inc., and the company was unlikely to believe it could mislead the market given the public nature of its information, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said April 17 in affirming dismissal of a securities class action.
April 18, 2024
Punitive Damages Survive Directed Verdict Bid In Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A railway can face punitive damages for the conduct of its predecessors at a Libby, Mont., mine under Montana law, and there has been sufficient evidence at trial that the railway or its predecessors knew of the risks of asbestos for the claim to go to a jury, a federal judge said April 17 in denying a motion for a directed verdict.