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Mealey's Asbestos

October 02, 2024
Japanese Firm Can’t Avoid Asbestos Jurisdictional Discovery After N.J. Ruling

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey judge declined to reconsider a ruling allowing jurisdictional discovery into a Japanese company’s contacts with the state in an asbestos case after saying his concern about some of the statements made by affiants in support of a motion to dismiss warranted such a move.
October 02, 2024
Stricken Asbestos Testimony Didn’t Influence Verdict, Louisiana Court Says

NEW ORLEANS — An expert’s stricken testimony about shipyard asbestos exposure was irrelevant to a jury’s conclusion that there was insufficient evidence of asbestos in a company’s talc, a majority of a Louisiana appeals court said in reversing a ruling granting a new trial. But in a pair of dissents, judges found the testimony more relevant than the majority credited.
October 01, 2024
New York Appeals Court Won’t Reconsider Asbestos Subpoena, Instructions Case

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A New York appellate court denied reargument or leave for further appeal after dismissing an appeal challenging a trial judge’s quashing a subpoena seeking corporate testimony about events 50 years prior and a separate opinion affirming rejection of a jury instruction on an employer’s potential role as an intervening cause of a man’s mesothelioma in a case that produced a $2 million verdict.
October 01, 2024
Louisiana Court Reinstates Industrial Hygiene Opinion In Household Asbestos Case

NEW ORLEANS — The evidence an asbestos industrial hygiene expert relied on for his conclusion that a woman experienced significant household exposures goes to the weight of that testimony and not its admissibility, a Louisiana appeals court said in granting an emergency appeal and reversing a motion to exclude.
October 01, 2024
Beasley Allen, Smith Law Talc Firms Sue Each Other, Allege Breach Of Contract

Two law firms at the center of litigation alleging that consumer talc contains asbestos turned on each other recently, with each suing the other for breach of contract in a pair of federal court lawsuits alleging that financial motives interfered with decision making about Johnson & Johnson’s third attempt at a bankruptcy to resolve the litigation.
September 26, 2024
Judge Won’t Hasten Trial; Asbestos Plaintiffs Seek To Cut Off Government Immunity

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana denied an attempt to expedite a take-home asbestos exposure case on Sept. 25, saying the plaintiffs’ reliance on state law ignores that federal law governs the case. The same plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on the issue of government immunity, saying that if shipyard defendants could not produce evidence of government direction of workplace safety in nearly 30 years, they will not be able to do so now.
September 25, 2024
9th Circuit Affirms Verdict In False Claims Suit Against Asbestos Screener

MISSOULA, Mont. — A trial court properly denied summary judgment on False Claims Act and statute of limitations grounds to a Libby, Mont., medical screening company and properly instructed the jury about the standard for evaluating allegations that the company submitted claims under a special Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act program for asbestos-exposed Libby residents, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in a Sept. 24 unpublished opinion.
September 24, 2024
Discovery Ruling Issued In Asbestos Coverage Row Involving Insolvent Insurer

OMAHA, Neb. — A Nebraska federal magistrate judge granted in part National Indemnity Co. (NICO)’s motion to compel discovery of an insurer in its suit seeking to enforce obligations by multiple insurers, one of whom is now insolvent, for the liability NICO incurred related to claims for asbestos exposure, finding that the attorneys’ eyes only designation (AEO) must be removed from discovery material due, in part, to the insurer’s failure to “articulate why an AEO designation is the right tool to prevent this harm.”
September 24, 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.
September 24, 2024
California Judge Signs Genetic Testing Order Ensuring Protections

OAKLAND, Calif. — An asbestos plaintiffs will sit for saliva or blood testing with appropriate protections in place to prevent testing that goes beyond the germline BAP1 mutation testing required in the case, a California judge said in signing a joint protective order.
September 24, 2024
California Top Court Won’t Depublish, Review Nonhousehold Asbestos Case

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Supreme Court denied a petition for review and request to depublish a ruling holding that nothing in California precedent precluded holding a pipe manufacturer strictly liable for nonhousehold asbestos exposure a man experienced when he visited his brother after work, according to the docket.
September 23, 2024
Dismissal Sought For J&J 3rd Spinoff Bankruptcy Proposing $9 Billion Trust

HOUSTON — Johnson & Johnson (J&J) on Sept. 20 filed the third bankruptcy case of an affiliate saddled with the thousands of asbestos talc ovarian cancer claims leveled against the health products giant, and the next day attorneys representing asbestos claimants who did not vote to accept the debtor’s plan of reorganization filed a motion to dismiss the case like the two before it for being filed in bad faith.
September 23, 2024
California Jury Awards $16.79M In Laboratory Asbestos Exposure Case

LOS ANGELES — A California judge awarded $16,679,000 to a husband and wife in a mesothelioma case involving exposures to asbestos in laboratories in Alaska, Arizona and California that featured a battle over genetics with a second defendant that avoided trial.
September 20, 2024
Federal Talc MDL Judge Won’t Permit Consolidated Bellwether Trial

TRENTON, N.J. — The first bellwether trials in the Johnson & Johnson federal multidistrict litigation will involve single cases, the federal judge overseeing the litigation said in denying a letter brief identifying two cases for consolidated trial.
September 19, 2024
Washington Court Affirms $5.75M Asbestos Verdict Against Volkswagen

SEATTLE — A Washington court had jurisdiction over a German automobile manufacturer based on its import deal with a U.S. subsidiary, there was sufficient evidence linking those two companies to a man’s mesothelioma and a trial judge did not err in instructing the jury on causation, a state appellate court said in an unpublished opinion affirming a $5.75 million asbestos verdict.
September 19, 2024
Premises Duty, Experts At Heart Of Florida Appeal Of Asbestos Defense Verdict

MIAMI — A woman tells a Florida appellate court that she was wrongly denied a new trial after a jury returned a verdict in favor of an asbestos premises defendant despite uncontradicted evidence of its liability. But Florida Light & Power Co. argues that the fact that it issued some warnings does not impose a duty on it to warn everyone of everything and that the jury was free to reject the opinions of the woman’s specific causation expert.
September 19, 2024
Pa. Court Rejects Expert, Causation Challenges After $3.3M Asbestos Verdict

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A Pennsylvania appellate court found no fault with a trial judge’s conclusion about expert testimony on causation and duty or in allowing an asbestos suit against an employer that ended in a bench trial and more than $3.3 million verdict, but said that the trial judge erred in reducing delay damages for various issues in the case, including a prolonged stay that corresponded with the coronavirus pandemic.
September 18, 2024
No Coverage Afforded For Asbestos Suits Under Exposure Trigger Theory, Insurers Say

FORT WORTH, Texas — Two insurers maintain in reply briefs filed in Texas federal court that summary judgment in their favor in an asbestos coverage suit is warranted because coverage under their policies is barred under an exposure trigger of coverage theory, which they say applies pursuant to a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ decision on the trigger of coverage issue.
September 18, 2024
AII Calls Dismissal Motion A ‘Bad Faith’ Effort To Avoid Talc Discovery

NEW YORK — An asbestos plaintiff’s motion to dismiss his case is not an attempt to avoid the rigors of litigation but is a “bad faith” effort at avoiding discovery into expert studies behind talc litigation, American International Industries (AII) argues in urging a federal judge in New York to deny his motion and permit limited discovery into the experts that would otherwise be unavailable.
September 17, 2024
Jury Awards $39M In Talc Pleurodesis Mesothelioma Case

WOBURN, Mass. — A Massachusetts jury awarded $39,081,142 to a couple for a man’s mesothelioma arising from exposure to talc used during a medical procedure, sources told Mealey Publications.
September 17, 2024
Talc Defendant Claims ‘Egregious Misconduct’ In New Jersey Asbestos Case

LOS ANGELES — Asbestos firm Simmons Hanley Conroy committed “egregious misconduct” by communicating with and obtaining a statement from a corporate representative without the knowledge of the defendant or counsel, talc defendant American International Industries (AII) alleges in asking a California judge for a protective order and to quash the New Jersey state court deposition.
September 16, 2024
Employer, Son Brief Whether Organ Cancers Are Loss, Or Loss Of Use

WILMINGTON, Del. — A son of man who suffered cancer, including mesothelioma, throughout organs in his body and the man’s former employer wrapped up briefing in an appeal over interpreting expert testimony and whether the man’s injury constituted loss of a body part or merely the loss of its use in an appeal of a Delaware workers’ compensation case.
September 16, 2024
Vanderbilt Stuck In California For Suit Alleging Son’s Asbestos Exposure

OAKLAND, Calif. — A couple adequately alleges that their son was exposed to asbestos in talc incorporated in joint compound and related products with connections to California, giving the state jurisdiction over the talc company, a judge in the state said in denying a motion to quash service of summons.
September 16, 2024
LLT Management Gets Hearing Delayed Pending Cert Petition Over Case Dismissal

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal bankruptcy judge granted a request from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LLT Management LLC to delay a hearing on closing its Chapter 11 case until after the time to petition the U.S. Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari to review dismissal of the case has passed.
September 13, 2024
Avondale Ordered To Produce Family Employment Records, Opposes Expedited Trial

NEW ORLEANS — Days after a judge ordered a shipyard to produce employment records of the cousins of a woman allegedly exposed to asbestos on their work clothing, the shipyard opposed expedited trial, noting that the exposed individual is dead and that the case was still in its infancy.