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Mealey's Asbestos

April 11, 2024
Pennsylvania Court Affirms Causation, Faults Asbestos Verdict Apportionment

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A plaintiff produced sufficient evidence at trial that the product a woman used at her salon contained asbestos-tainted Italian talc, but in apportioning liability, the trial court ran afoul of the state’s Fair Share Act, a Pennsylvania appeals court said April 10 in reversing the judgment and remanding for reapportionment.
April 10, 2024
Reconsideration Bid Denied, Default Judgment Granted In Reimbursement Dispute

OMAHA, Neb. — Deciding against a Brazil-based reinsurer on two motions in a March 9 amended ruling, a Nebraska federal judge entered judgment for plaintiff National Indemnity Co. (NICO) on all claims in a suit over reimbursement for a settlement reached with Montana regarding alleged asbestos exposure.
April 10, 2024
Viability Of UCL Class Action Involving Asbestos And Talc Rests With 9th Circuit

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral arguments over whether allegations of a decades-long advertising campaign about the safety and purity of talcum powder sufficiently specifies the advertising in question and saves a California unfair competition law (UCL) class action alleging that in reality the products contained asbestos and other contaminants.
April 10, 2024
J&J Entities Say They Have No Talc-Related Liabilities

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Talc liabilities followed a separate Johnson & Johnson entity and under Texas law cannot be attributed to three other companies, the companies argue in a motion to strike the asbestos-talc claims against them in a Connecticut court.
April 09, 2024
Retired CARD Director Says BNSF Deposition Went Off The Rails

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Despite agreeing to limit deposition questions to mesothelioma and relevant issues, a railway asked a retired director of a medical clinic about unrelated diseases and practices, the man tells a federal judge in Montana in seeking a protective order and sanctions.
April 09, 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 08, 2024
John Crane Seeks Fees In Wake Of Asbestos Verdict In Illinois Federal Trial

CHICAGO — John Crane Inc. asks a federal judge in Illinois for more than $40,000 in expert witness and other fees after a jury handed it a defense verdict in a maritime plaintiffs’ asbestos case.
April 08, 2024
Trial Kicks Off After Judge Denies Vanderbilt’s Causation, Successor Arguments

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Trial in a case is under way after a judge in Connecticut denied a motion for summary judgment, saying Vanderbilt Minerals Inc. had not eliminated the possibility that its products caused a man’s asbestos-related disease or that it could not be held liable as a successor to a company whose assets it purchased.
April 08, 2024
Connecticut Judge Consolidates Asbestos Injury Cases Against Former Employer

HARTFORD, Conn. — A judge in Connecticut consolidated four asbestos cases, turning aside the former employer defendant’s argument that the “superficial” similarities between the cases did not overcome the challenges posed by the presence of the certain injury exception to workers’ compensation law and that any trial would leave the jury with the “herculean task” of sorting through the evidence.
April 08, 2024
Boston Law Firm, Founders Defend Judge’s Finding In Asbestos Records Spat

BOSTON — Jury instructions permit the conclusion that a jury found taking files from a former employer unfair but that it also concluded that those files were never used by the new law firm, and the judge overseeing the retrial was perfectly within his discretion to hold a bench trial on the issue on remand, appellees tell a Massachusetts appellate court.
April 08, 2024
Competing Expert Testimony Can’t Save Secondhand Asbestos Case, Justice Says

NEW YORK — Even competing expert testimony cannot save a case alleging that a man suffered secondhand asbestos exposure from his brother, the New York justice overseeing a case against an oven company said.
April 04, 2024
Justice: Canadian Family Can Keep Asbestos Action In New York

NEW YORK — A Canadian family’s asbestos case will stay in New York after a state court justice found the lack of any evidence of witness inconvenience and the allegation that at least some purchases occurred in New York make the state a proper forum for litigating the action.
April 03, 2024
Judge Denies Additional Genetic Mutation Testing In Mesothelioma Case

LOS ANGELES — A defendant previously granted BAP-1 testing in a mesothelioma case should have requested the mutation testing it now seeks when it first sought testing, and there is too little time remaining to conduct the additional testing it now seeks, a California judge said in denying the request.
April 02, 2024
Texas Court Won’t Reconsider Adjacent Issues In Revived Asbestosis Causation Case

HOUSTON — An appeal of a no-evidence summary judgment ruling on substantial factor causation in an asbestosis case did not address other issues in the case, and the issues the employer raises on reconsideration were never briefed, a Texas appellate court said in an April 2 per curiam opinion denying reconsideration.
April 01, 2024
Railway Says Montana Asbestos Screener Stuck ‘Head In Sand’

MISSOULA, Mont. — Evidence introduced at trial showed a Libby, Mont., medical facility must have known the B-read-only and other claims it submitted to a special asbestos-related Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) program were not a diagnosis and were fraudulent, and it cannot avoid liability by claiming it was simply doing its best when in reality it was sticking its head in the sand over the program’s requirements, a railway tells the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a March 29 answering brief.
March 28, 2024
Asbestos-Talc MDL Judge: Changes To Landscape Require Refiling Of Daubert Motions

TRENTON, N.J. — Changes in science and federal rules of evidence since a 2020 opinion on the admissibility of experts in the federal multidistrict asbestos-talc litigation warrant the refiling of Daubert motions, the federal judge overseeing the litigation said in a March 27 text-only order.
March 27, 2024
South Carolina Jury Returns $1.75M Asbestos Verdict Against John Crane

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A South Carolina jury awarded $1.75 million to a widow whose husband developed mesothelioma and died after exposure to asbestos in John Crane Inc. gaskets, finding the company liable for negligence but not strict liability.
March 26, 2024
4th Circuit Says No Rehearing In Asbestos Coverage Row With Guaranty Association

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an insurer’s request for rehearing and rehearing en banc of the court’s ruling dismissing the insurer’s appeal of a district court’s order remanding to state court a receiver’s asbestos coverage suit against insurers and the South Carolina Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association.
March 26, 2024
Chicago Jury Awards $7.43M To Brick Mason With Mesothelioma

CHCAGO — An Illinois jury returned a $7.4 million verdict for a former brick mason suffering from mesothelioma, finding that exposure to hot top boards used in the steel-making process was the cause of his disease, sources told Mealey’s Publications.
March 26, 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.
March 25, 2024
Asbestos Verdict Appeal Briefing Wraps As Kaiser Gypsum Exits

LOS ANGELES — In an appeal of a jury verdict, a California appeals court dismissed one asbestos defendant after a notice of settlement was filed, while briefing wrapped up over the appropriateness of the jury apportioning zero liability to a company it concluded was a substantial factor in a man’s mesothelioma.
March 22, 2024
Merchant Marine Loses Appeal Of Expert, Summary Judgment Rulings In Asbestos Case

NEW ORLEANS — A former Merchant Marine’s concession that he had no memory of exposure to asbestos and simply assumed it based on the mineral’s widespread use falls short of the threshold for success and warranted exclusion of his experts and summary judgment in favor of various ship owners, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in affirming.
March 22, 2024
Pennsylvania Top Court Set To Decide Application Of Occupational Law’s Exclusivity

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Similarly situated plaintiffs moved to appear at oral arguments after briefing wrapped up in a case where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will decide whether the exclusivity provision in the state’s occupational disease law precludes a man’s tort action even when the four-year statute of limitations precludes him from recovering under the statute.
March 21, 2024
Judge Orders BAP 1 Genetic Testing In California Asbestos Case

LOS ANGELES — Evidence of whether a man carries the BAP 1 genetic mutation and its potential role in his mesothelioma go to a core issue in an asbestos case and cannot be obtained in any other way, a California judge said in granting a motion to compel and ordering a saliva test and associated genetic testing.
March 21, 2024
Plaintiff, W.R. Grace Trust Debate Proper Place For Tort Claim

MISSOULA, Mo. — W.R. Grace & Co.’s asbestos trust and a former nonbinding arbitration claimant briefed a Montana federal court on whether resolution of his tort claim simply seeks a declaration of the disease from which he suffers or would require interpretation of the bankruptcy trust’s distribution procedures and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court.