Mealey's Asbestos
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October 15, 2024
Amici Urge Imposing Duty For Kentucky Take-Home Asbestos Cases
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Two amici curiae urged the Kentucky Supreme Court to allow liability for take-home asbestos exposures, with one saying that the state long recognized universal duty and the second saying that placing corporate profits in “bubble wrap” by immunizing them from suit serves “no public good.”
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October 15, 2024
Judge Admits Marine Engineering Expert In Asbestos Sovereign Immunity Case
NEW ORLEANS — After denying reconsideration and precluding a man from relying on a settled party’s experts, a federal judge in Louisiana turned away challenges to a marine engineering expert, saying the expert’s knowledge about Navy shipbuilding practices and asbestos is likely to be helpful to a jury on the issue of derivative sovereign immunity.
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October 15, 2024
South Carolina Court Passes On Asbestos Causation, Sanction Questions
COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court left in place a discovery sanction and $3.12 million asbestos verdict, denying a certiorari petition asking it to weigh in on a wide range of issues from causation and intervening cause to the availability of punitive damages and whether a court properly penalized the defendant for its handling of lung tissue sample.
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October 15, 2024
9th Circuit Panel Reverses Government Contractor Win For Asbestos Plaintiffs
SAN FRANCISCO — A judge erred in granting summary judgment to a family on a government contractor defense in a maritime asbestos case under Boyle v. United Techs., when Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Const. Co. was both cited by the defendant and permits the defense, a panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in an unpublished opinion reversing.
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October 11, 2024
Judge: ‘Unique Circumstances’ Free Asbestos Case From Texas Causation Requirement
WILMINGTON, Del. — The “unique circumstances” of an asbestos pipe case free a woman from Texas law requiring plaintiffs to calculate the aggregate dose of exposure and demonstrate that the dose doubled the risk of mesothelioma, a judge in Delaware said in denying reconsideration of a ruling denying summary judgment.
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October 11, 2024
Massachusetts Appeals Court Hears Arguments In Asbestos Firms’ Unfair Practices Spat
BOSTON — The Massachusetts Appeals Court heard oral argument Oct. 10 in a case pitting two asbestos plaintiffs’ law firms against each other in a battle over the scope of damages for unfair practices under Massachusetts law and the ownership of client-related databases lawyers took from their former firm during the formation of their new firm.
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October 10, 2024
Judge Wants Insights Into Discovery Request In Asbestos Case Remand Fight
SEATTLE — Discovery requests issued after briefing on a motion for remand call into question whether asbestos claims involve allegations of exposure stemming from military vessels at a shipyard, and the parties should meet and confer to resolve the issue or file supplemental briefs on the issue, a federal judge in Washington said.
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October 10, 2024
Man On Dismissal: Moline Study A Portion Of Talc Case, Doesn’t Call For Discovery
NEW YORK — Courts strongly favor granting voluntary dismissals with prejudice as precedent cited by both parties shows, and dismissal would leave no basis or need for ongoing discovery, an asbestos plaintiff tells a federal judge in New York in an Oct. 9 reply brief rebutting claims that his motion to dismiss his case was a bad faith effort to avoid discovery.
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October 09, 2024
Judge: ‘Sham Affidavit’ About Shipyard Bills Can’t Save Asbestos Case
SAN FRANCISCO — An asbestos plaintiffs submitted a “sham affidavit” testifying to having seen a defendant’s name on bills and purchase orders at a shipyard after previously testifying that he had no recollection of the company and no way to assist in recalling it, a federal judge in California said in granting summary judgment.
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October 09, 2024
New York Court: No Privacy Protections For Asbestos Expert’s Talc Study Subjects
NEW YORK — The subjects of research papers on the connection between cosmetic talc and mesothelioma are clearly relevant to personal injury actions, and because the subjects were never treated by or patients of the researchers, they are not protected by federal health privacy law, a panel of the First Department New York Supreme Court Appellate Division said Oct. 8.
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October 08, 2024
7th Circuit Sets Argument In Reinsurers’ Arbitration Estoppel Dispute
CHICAGO — The Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has scheduled oral argument for Nov. 5 in reinsurers’ appeal concerning the effects of prior arbitration, which involves asbestos-related liabilities; the dispute also includes a dismissal motion that is based on a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
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October 08, 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.
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October 07, 2024
Illinois Judge Rejects Challenges To $45M Asbestos-Talc Verdict
CHICAGO — An Illinois judge rejected post-trial motions challenging a $45 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson entities, finding sufficient evidence and support for plaintiffs’ expert testimony, that a pair of defense witnesses were properly limited and that the jury was properly instructed, including on the issue of successor liability.
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October 07, 2024
Pipe Maker: Asbestos Firm’s Baseless Conduct Not Protected, RICO Claim Survives
CHICAGO — Allegations that an asbestos law firm, in a scheme including its attorneys and its clients, filed lawsuits with baseless claims against a defendant suffice for a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) case, and nothing in litigation protections provides immunity, a pipe manufacturer tells an Illinois federal judge in opposing motions to strike and dismiss.
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October 04, 2024
Settled Party’s Experts Can’t Be Used, Judge Says In Denying Reconsideration
NEW ORLEANS — Having failed to oppose a motion for summary judgment two years ago on asbestos exposures occurring after 1969, an asbestos plaintiff cannot now rely on a settled party’s experts in an effort to revive the claim, a federal judge in Louisiana said Oct. 3 in denying reconsideration, precluding the man from relying on the experts and granting judgment on the pleadings to a defendant company.
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October 07, 2024
Debate Over Proper Bond For Appeal Of $8.8M Asbestos Verdict Continues
LOS ANGELES — A dispute over the proper appellate bond covering a nearly $9 million asbestos verdict continues after the parties were unable to come to an agreement, leading to supplemental briefing in which a defendant tells a Los Angeles court that its proffered bond is now complete while the plaintiffs argue that the company is not doing the math correctly and, having already shorted the bond, is acting with unclean hands.
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October 04, 2024
Pittsburgh Jury’s $1.5M In Punitive Damages Brings Asbestos Verdict To $3.8M
PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania jury awarded a couple $3.8 million, including $1.5 million in punitive damages, for the husband’s mesothelioma and found Foster Wheeler LLC 100% liable.
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October 04, 2024
J&J’s 3rd Bankruptcy Attempt Triggers More Briefing On Talc Firm’s Role
TRENTON, N.J. — A bankruptcy stay does not apply to an effort at removing a law firm from the asbestos-talc Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC), Johnson & Johnson argues in a second motion to remove and related letter briefs filed in a federal court in New Jersey claiming that in a “severe breach of trust,” the firm voted against the bankruptcy plan without the client authority to do so. But in its own filing, the firm tells the court that the stay imposed by the bankruptcy of the Johnson & Johnson entity should apply and calls the company’s position “highly suspect” given that a state court judge already found no reason to remove the firm from its role.
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October 03, 2024
Ruling Allows Asbestos Experts, Rejects Defenses And 4 Summary Judgment Motions
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California addressing a handful of motions involving Daubert challenges and various requests for summary judgment admitted a co-worker’s deposition testimony, said the plaintiffs’ experts did not offer the opinion that every exposure to asbestos leads to disease, denied four defendants summary judgment but found that sufficient evidence exists to grant the plaintiffs summary judgment on the sophisticated user and sophisticated intermediary defenses.
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October 03, 2024
Derivative Sovereign Immunity, Duty Arguments Fail In Magistrate Judge Challenge
WILMINGTON, Del. — A helicopter manufacturer has not shown that its aircraft didn’t include asbestos-containing parts, that it cannot be liable for those parts or that either the government contractor defense or derivative sovereign immunity protects it from liability in an asbestos case, a federal judge in Delaware said in partially denying summary judgment while adopting a magistrate judge’s report and recommendation.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.