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

Mealey's Asbestos

November 19, 2024
Compelling Arbitration, Judge Says MOU Is ‘Closely Related’ To Reinsurance Contract

LOS ANGELES — Concluding that a 1984 memorandum of understanding (MOU) is “closely related to the reinsurance contract and not a completely separate agreement,” a California federal judge granted reinsurers’ motion to compel arbitration in a lawsuit over reinsurance billings arising from asbestos bodily injury claims.
November 06, 2024
COMMENTARY: California Appellate Court Gets One Right In Watts Opinion

By Mark A. Love
November 18, 2024
Judge Allows Surreply Brief On Anti-SLAPP Motion In Asbestos RICO Suit

CHICAGO — A federal court in Illinois granted a motion to file a surreply, allowing an asbestos pipe manufacturer suing a law firm to brief whether California’s anti-strategic lawsuits against public participation law applies. Facing a multitude of defenses to a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit, the frequent asbestos defendant relies on “only inuendo and conclusory allegations” in an effort at revenge against the plaintiffs’ counsel, the law firm told a federal judge in Illinois in replies filed in support of motions to dismiss and strike the complaint.
November 18, 2024
Plaintiffs Withdraw Connecticut Asbestos Suits Against Former Employer

HARTFORD, Conn. — Plaintiffs in four consolidated cases withdrew their actions on Nov. 15, ending actions that saw the Connecticut appellate court conclude that occupational asbestos-related injuries were substantially certain to the employer and a trial judge’s rejection of arguments about the difficulties a joint trial would pose.
November 18, 2024
Delaware Judge Won’t Modify Receivership Over Asbestos Company

WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware judge declined to modify a receivership to permit the marshalling of a dissolved company’s assets and defense of asbestos claims in four cases spread out over three states after an insurance company argued that the modification would skip procedures already put in place and essentially grant the relief sought by the original petition.
November 04, 2024
COMMENTARY: Lady Justice May Be Blind, But Her Courts Aren’t: Gender Bias And Barriers To Representation For Female Plaintiffs

By Sophie Zavaglia
November 14, 2024
Oregon Judge Finds $200M Punitive Damages Constitutional In Asbestos Case

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon judge declined to reduce or vacate $200 million in punitive damages awarded in an asbestos-talc case against Johnson & Johnson, saying the jury’s $60 million in noneconomic damages supports finding that the award passes constitutional muster.
November 14, 2024
Talc Pleurodesis’ Role In Trial At Center Of Motion In Limine In Mesothelioma Case

LOS ANGELES — A couple and defendants locked in battle over a mesothelioma case debated the relevance and impact any references at trial to a talc pleurodesis procedure would have on the jury in briefing in a California court.
November 13, 2024
More Than 150 People Sue Cape Entities Over Asbestos Scheme

COLUMBIA, S.C. — More than 150 individuals with various types of asbestos exposure filed a negligence and product liability suit in South Carolina against mining giant Cape PLC and its various subsidiaries on Nov. 12 for allegedly operating a scheme to sell asbestos in the United States with the knowledge that doing so would kill or injure tens of thousands of people while relying on a “byzantine web” of interrelated entities to escape liability for the conduct.
November 13, 2024
Restrictions Granted In Asbestos Coverage Dispute Involving Liquidated Insurer

OMAHA, Neb. — In docket-only orders, a Nebraska federal magistrate judge granted motions to restrict access to certain documents by National Indemnity Co. (NICO) and Horace Mann Insurance Co., including briefs related to summary judgment motions, in NICO’s 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.
November 12, 2024
Floor Tile Company Drops Asbestos Causation Appeal, Settles Case

NEW YORK — A tile defendant withdrew its appeal of a ruling finding that allegations that a man sanded the product exceeded the state’s causation standard, and the company announced that it reached a settlement with a mesothelioma sufferer already awarded $600,000 by a New York jury.
November 12, 2024
Judge Says Asbestos Complaint More Than A ‘Shotgun Pleading’

NEW ORLEANS — A man lays out specific times of exposure and theories of recovery, exceeding what one would call a “shotgun complaint” and giving an asbestos defendant sufficient details on which it can respond, a federal judge in Louisiana said in denying a motion to dismiss.
November 12, 2024
Justice Says Talc Defendant Misplaces Burden On Summary Judgment

NEW YORK — A defendant in an asbestos talc case misplaces the burden of proof on summary judgment, pointing to holes in a case where it admits that it manufactured the product, and there remain questions about its knowledge of the dangers, a New York justice said in denying summary judgment.
November 12, 2024
Kentucky Panel Reverses Workers’ Comp Ruling In Asbestos Coverage Dispute

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Court of Appeals reversed a decision by the Kentucky Workers’ Compensation Board and instructed the board to remand the dispute to an administrative law judge to determine which of two insurers should provide coverage to a workers’ compensation claimant who developed mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure while working at a Kentucky high school that contained asbestos.
November 11, 2024
Asbestos Law Firm Claims ‘Multiple Dispositive Defenses’ To RICO Suit

CHICAGO — Facing a multitude of defenses to a Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit, an asbestos-pipe defendant relies on “only inuendo and conclusory allegations” in an effort at revenge against plaintiffs’ counsel, lawyers told a federal judge in Illinois in defending motions to dismiss and strike the complaint.
November 08, 2024
La. Panel Vacates Order For Lack Of Admissibility Ruling In Asbestos Coverage Row

BATON ROUGE, La. — A Louisiana appellate panel vacated and remanded a lower court ruling that denied a motion for summary judgment filed by a company that purportedly used asbestos-containing products in an asbestos liability suit filed against it and multiple defendants, including a now-insolvent insurer, finding that the lower court incorrectly denied summary judgment to the company without ruling on the parties’ objections to the evidence.
November 07, 2024
Federal Magistrate Judge Denies Amendment Adding Asbestos-Talc Defendant

NEW ORLEANS — A woman’s vague explanation for attempting to add a new retail defendant to her asbestos-talc suit a year after its filing and only after the process began to dismiss the lone nondiverse defendant in the case appears tailored to defeat jurisdiction, a federal magistrate judge said, denying leave to amend.
November 06, 2024
7th Circuit Hears Argument On Arbitration Preclusion Dispute In Reinsurers’ Appeal

CHICAGO — In Nov. 5 oral argument before a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel concerning where disputes over the preclusive effect of prior arbitration are decided, reinsurers acknowledged that the reversal they seek would create a circuit split, while an insurer cited Smith v. Spizzirri in urging the court to vacate the challenged dismissal to arbitration in favor of a stay during arbitration.
November 05, 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.
November 05, 2024
Judge Stays J&J Effort To Remove Counsel From Talc MDL

TRENTON, N.J. — The effort to disqualify and remove the Beasley Allen law firm from the talc multidistrict litigation steering committee is on hold after a federal judge in New Jersey stayed the effort in the wake of a ruling by the judge overseeing a J&J entity’s bankruptcy saying the automatic stay should apply.
November 01, 2024
California Panel Upends Auto Shop Owner’s $10.1M Asbestos Verdict

SAN FRANCISCO — A trial court overseeing an asbestos case that produced a $10.1 million verdict erred in issuing a directed verdict on the sophisticated user defense in the case of an automobile shop owner and by failing to list certain potentially liable parties on the verdict sheet, a California appeals court panel said in reversing and remanding for a new trial.
November 01, 2024
Split Panel: Silicosis Case Fails Due To Plaintiff’s Unreliable Experts

HOUSTON — A split Texas appeals court panel on Oct. 31 affirmed a lower court’s ruling in favor of Exxon Mobil Corp. in a silica injury lawsuit brought by a worker who sandblasted railcars and contended that he developed pulmonary fibrosis because the company created a situation in which he had to perform an “intrinsically unsafe and ultrahazardous activity.” The panel held that the worker’s experts were not reliable.
November 01, 2024
Asbestos Bankruptcy Claimants Take Stay Relief Denial Ruling To 4th Circuit

CHARLOTTE, N.C. —A federal judge in North Carolina affirmed a bankruptcy court’s decision not to lift the automatic stay for two asbestos cases, agreeing that allowing the cases to proceed in state court could threaten the DBMP LLC bankruptcy process. The claimants filed a notice of appeal to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in the wake of the ruling.
November 01, 2024
Woman Says Hysterectomy Evidence Relevant In Mesothelioma Case

LOS ANGELES — Expert testimony establishes that mesothelioma spread to a woman’s ovaries necessitating a hysterectomy regardless of the initial diagnosis, the woman tells a Los Angeles judge in opposing a motion in limine to exclude evidence of the procedure.
October 31, 2024
Boiler Company Says Discovery Triggered Asbestos Case Removal

SEATTLE — It would have been objectively unreasonable to remove a case alleging asbestos exposure at various locations and to non-Navy products, and it was only subsequent discovery that demonstrated that the case belongs in federal court, a company argues in a supplemental brief opposing remand from a federal court in Washington.