Mealey's Asbestos
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January 27, 2025
Pa. Top Court Permits Torts For Time-Barred Occupational Disease Claimants
HARRISBURG, Pa. — The bargain between employees and employers in the occupational disease system cannot countenance completely extinguishing an asbestos claim that would be time-barred by the law, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in affirming lower courts while relying on the same logic it applied in the workers’ compensation system setting a decade ago.
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January 27, 2025
J&J Wants 2nd Look At Ruling Nixing Insurance After $4.69B Talc Verdict
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — An insurer opposed Johnson & Johnson’s request for reconsideration after a judge in New Jersey concluded that subsequent victories in asbestos-talc cases do not alter the fact that a Missouri jury awarded $4.69 billion in a case against the company and found that it acted in a reprehensible manner, putting the verdict outside the terms of insurance policies because the state forbids insuring punitive damages and the policies cover only accidental injuries.
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January 27, 2025
Magistrate Denies Insurer’s Bids To Compel Discovery In Asbestos Coverage Dispute
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A federal magistrate judge in a single order denied an insurer’s motions to compel discovery in four similar suits against insurers filed by the estates of people who died purportedly from asbestos exposure, seeking payment of judgments entered against an asbestos mine, finding that though discovery of negotiations resulting in a funding agreement is related to the agreement’s impact, the disclosure of the agreement “is sufficient.”
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January 24, 2025
Woman Wants New Trial After Inconsistent Liability, Damages Asbestos Verdict
PITTSBURGH — A jury heard lay witness testimony about topics only an expert can relay and expert testimony about other potential causes of a woman’s mesothelioma that were not previously disclosed, and a court should order a new trial after the jury found in favor of Johnson & Johnson defendants but awarded $22 million in punitive damages anyway, a woman tells a Pennsylvania judge.
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January 24, 2025
J&J, Man Awarded $15M By Connecticut Jury Debate Punitive Damages, Experts
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — In a quartet of briefs filed in a Connecticut court, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) entities and a mesothelioma sufferer who was awarded $15 million briefed the size of the award, what amount the court should award as punitive damages and whether the court properly admitted experts and instructed the jury.
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January 24, 2025
Sephora, Asbestos Plaintiff Debate Need To Continue Talc Trial
LOS ANGELES — A high-end cosmetics retailer told a California court that late disclosure of talc products to which a mesothelioma sufferer was exposed requires continuing a trial scheduled to start in February. But in response, the plaintiffs said that the case always involved the products in question and that the defendant’s failure to investigate the allegations should not be grounds to continue the trial.
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January 24, 2025
Wisconsin High Court Will Hear Asbestos Premises Liability, Punitive Damages Case
MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to wade into an asbestos case over a brewery owner’s liability under state law for injuries suffered by the employee of an independent contractor and whether the state’s cap on punitive damages applies to all compensatory damages or only those the plaintiff is likely to recover.
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January 24, 2025
Bankruptcy Judge Closes Chapter 11 Case Of 2nd J&J Spinoff
TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge has closed the second Chapter 11 case of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LLT Management LLC after the Official Committee of Talc Claimants reported that it would not petition the U.S. Supreme Court for review of the bankruptcy judge’s decision to dismiss the case due to the debtor’s lack of financial distress.
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January 23, 2025
New Jersey Judge Denies Motion Seeking Access To Asbestos Expert Longo’s Lab
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — In the wake of the company’s efforts to find common ground, a New Jersey judge denied a motion by various Johnson & Johnson entities to conduct a live “side-by-side” inspection of asbestos expert William Longo’s laboratory and work, turning away complaints that to fully contest his methodology, the defendants must be able to witness his work live.
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January 23, 2025
Asbestos Pipe Case Liability Questions Go Before California Court
LOS ANGELES — Parties wrapped briefing on the appeal of a verdict for an asbestos pipe manufacturer on the question of whether a man’s use of a power saw constituted misuse, his level of knowledge and whether there were adequate warnings about the product’s dangers.
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January 23, 2025
Insurer Must Cover Asbestos Defendant’s Defense Costs, Judge Says
NEW ORLEANS — An insurance policy obligates an insurer to cover costs associated with defending against an asbestos action regardless of whether the expenses came before or after notice of the action, a federal judge in Louisiana said in granting summary judgment in a cross-claim.
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January 16, 2025
Magistrate Judge Won’t Condition Talc Suit Dismissal On Expert Discovery
NEW YORK — A man is free to sue whomever he wants, and because dismissal with prejudice precludes any future litigation on the claims, the talc defendant will not suffer any prejudice and is not entitled to discovery into an expert on whom the plaintiff no longer relies, a federal magistrate judge in New York said Jan. 15 in recommending that the court grant the motion.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.