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Mealey's Asbestos

May 14, 2024
Vermont Court: Last Exposure Triggered Statute Of Repose, Asbestos Case Barred

MONTPELIER, Vt. — The clock on a statute of repose in a take-home exposure mesothelioma case began at a woman’s last exposure, not when she experienced the cellular damage associated with her disease, an outcome that is not unconstitutional, the Vermont Supreme Court said in affirming summary judgment for a pair of companies.
May 13, 2024
Plaintiff Firm Fabricates Asbestos Cases, Company Says In RICO Suit

CHICAGO — Simmons Hanley Conroy LLP crafts asbestos exposure stories involving J-M Manufacturing Company Inc. products through “perjured testimony, falsified sworn statements, untrue discovery responses, asbestos bankruptcy claims that were not disclosed, and sham lawsuits,” the company alleges in a Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit filed May 10 in Illinois federal court.
May 13, 2024
Man Says J&J Entities’ Motion To Strike Asbestos Allegations Misses The Point

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — That various Johnson & Johnson entities underwent a merger in Texas doesn’t change allegations of post-merger conduct elsewhere or alter the Connecticut successor liability analysis, a man tells a judge in Connecticut in objecting to a motion to strike asbestos liability allegations.
May 13, 2024
Cert Denied For Injunction Row In Chapter 11 Case Of Georgia-Pacific Spinoff

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 13 denied two petitions for certiorari filed by asbestos claimants’ representatives in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific spinoff Bestwall LLC seeking to overturn a bankruptcy injunction barring asbestos personal injury claims against Georgia-Pacific and other nondebtor affiliates.
May 10, 2024
Iowa Court: Premises Owner Owes Duty To Entrant Regardless Of Control Over Work

DES MOINES, Iowa — A land possessor-entrant relationship differs from that of an employer-independent contractor relationship, and lack of control over the work is not dispositive to the question of duty in an asbestos case, an Iowa appeals court said in reversing summary judgment for a premises owner.
May 10, 2024
Judicial Panel Consolidates EPA Asbestos Rule Challenges In 5th Circuit

NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated in the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals various challenges to the recent Environmental Protection Agency rule largely banning chrysotile asbestos but providing up to a five-year grace period for certain industries to cease usage.
May 10, 2024
Florida Supreme Court: Spousal Damages Available In Post-Mesothelioma Marriage

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Because a wrongful death claim arises at death, a woman who married her longtime boyfriend after his mesothelioma diagnosis qualifies as a surviving spouse under state law, the Florida Supreme Court said May 9 while recognizing that the outcome could lead to recovery for damages unavailable had the man survived.
May 09, 2024
Wisconsin Court: Punitive Cap Is Double Total Compensatory Asbestos Award

MILWAUKEE — Evidence at trial supported a $26.45 million asbestos verdict and the cap on punitive damages applies to an entire jury award and not just a liable party’s portion of the award, a Wisconsin appeals court found in rejecting an appellant’s challenge to the verdict and partially affirming entry of judgment, saying the resulting award should be $13,419.295.79 against a premises owner defendant.
May 08, 2024
With Asbestos Trial Looming, Parties Argue Maritime Law Before 1st Circuit

BOSTON — Parties to an asbestos case set for jury trial this month argued before the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 7, with the plaintiff saying that there is no bar to jurisdiction because the case has always been a maritime case. But the defendant says the plaintiff always sought a jury trial, which is unavailable in maritime cases.
May 08, 2024
Suits Against Asbestos Trust Don’t Challenge Plan Terms, May Proceed, Judge Says

MISSOULA, Mont. — Lawsuits against the W.R. Grace & Co. asbestos trust follow procedures in the plan for such tort actions and are not collateral attacks on the plan procedures themselves, a federal judge in Montana said in a pair of orders rejecting a magistrate judge’s findings and recommendations and denying dismissal.
May 07, 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.
May 07, 2024
Asbestos Plaintiff, Talc Defendant Square Off Over Expert Testing

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A mesothelioma plaintiff and an asbestos-talc defendant have briefed a Connecticut judge on whether disclosure of expert William Longo’s testing of additional bottles of talc was untimely or whether the company was properly made aware of development.
May 07, 2024
Woman Defends South Carolina Asbestos Verdict From Causation, Other Challenges

SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A trial featured expert testimony about the levels of asbestos a man encountered and that the exposures were sufficient to cause his disease, and the court should reject a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV) in an asbestos case, a woman tells a South Carolina court in opposing the motion.
May 06, 2024
Receiver’s Asbestos Claims Process Survives Benzene Defendant’s Objection

MONROE, N.C. — A receiver’s proposal of how to handle thousands of asbestos and benzene claims of the now defunct Radiator Specialty Co. Inc. survived challenges by a sometime co-defendant claiming that the arrangement might leave it holding the bag in Pennsylvania litigation and where joint and several liability applies when a judge in North Carolina turned away the objections and adopted the suggested process.
May 02, 2024
In Disqualification Dispute, Talc MDL Parties Brief Exhibit’s Admission

TRENTON, N.J. — In letter briefing, Johnson & Johnson urged the asbestos-talc multidistrict litigation court to admit with only modest redactions an exhibit submitted in briefing on its motion to exclude an attorney and his law firm from the litigation, saying the law firm misstates and improperly expands a ruling finding the company waived certain protections.
May 02, 2024
Judge Denies Spoliation Sanctions, Stays Trial Pending Appeal

MISSOULA, Mont. — A federal judge overseeing a case involving BNSF Railway Co.’s handling of asbestos at the Libby, Mont., vermiculite mine denied the railway’s renewed motion for sanctions related to the failure to preserve the plaintiff’s remains and partially granted its request for bifurcated trial after a jury awarded $8 million to two individuals in a similar suit. On May 1, the judge stayed the May 6 trial pending an appeal of that verdict.
May 02, 2024
Johnson & Johnson Has New $6.5B Plan To Resolve Asbestos Talc Claims

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson (J&J) announced May 1 that it will pay nearly $6.5 billion to resolve all ovarian cancer claims through a prepackaged plan of reorganization for another subsidiary that will file for bankruptcy in Texas if the plan is accepted by asbestos talc claimants.
May 02, 2024
Asbestos-Talc MDL Judge Affirms Ruling Allowing Refiling Of Daubert Challenges

TRENTON, N.J. — A ruling allowing the refiling of Daubert challenges in the multidistrict litigation involving Johnson & Johnson talc doesn’t throw out a previous judge’s ruling but simply complies with the 2020 ruling’s recognition that the underlying science could change and acknowledges amendments to federal rules, a federal judge in New Jersey said in an unpublished memorandum denying reconsideration.
May 02, 2024
Disease Group’s Petition Is 4th To Challenge EPA Asbestos Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An asbestos disease awareness group is among the groups to have challenged the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent rule largely banning chrysotile asbestos, adding its petition in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to three similar petitions filed in the Fifth, Sixth and 11th circuits.
May 01, 2024
Judge Finds No Jurisdiction Over J&J Spinoff’s Talc Study Fraud Claims

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey courts lack jurisdiction over Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) former bankrupt affiliate LTL Management LLC’s fraud claims against three experts involving a study of mesothelioma patients allegedly exposed to asbestos in talc because even assuming that the article targeted the company without naming it, sending a computer file to a publisher and working as an expert in the state are too tenuous to establish jurisdiction, a federal judge in New Jersey said April 30 in dismissing the case.
May 01, 2024
9th Circuit Panel Affirms Dismissal With Prejudice Of UCL Asbestos-Talc Claims

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Plaintiffs in a class action “littered” a fifth amended complaint with descriptions of advertisements, but many appear unrelated to the asbestos-talc claims underpinning the California unfair competition law (UCL) allegations or lack the necessary evidence of reliance, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in an unpublished memorandum affirming summary judgment for the defendants.
May 01, 2024
Man’s Knowledge Of Railway Toxins Started FELA Clock, Ohio Court Says

TOLEDO, Ohio — A laryngeal cancer sufferer’s admission that he knew that he worked around potentially hazardous chemicals during his time at a railway and the available information on the hazards of asbestos and other toxins created a duty to investigate the cause of his disease and started the statute of limitations, an Ohio appeals court said in finding a Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) claim time-barred.
April 30, 2024
Judge Allows Asbestos Experts, Says Cross-Examination Can Explore Flaws In Testimony

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana denied a pair of challenges and admitted seven experts in an asbestos case set to go to trial in early May, noting that disagreements over whether social contacts or environmental exposures were the cause of a man’s fatal contact with asbestos went to the reliability of the evidence rather than its admissibility and any defects in the testimony could be exposed on cross-examination.
April 26, 2024
Illinois Court Affirms Asbestos FELA Verdict After Negligence, Witness Challenges

CHICAGO — Comments during closing statements about regulatory violations and the negligence standard in a Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) case involving asbestos exposure were only a small portion of the entire closing, and the trial court was best positioned to determine the proper remedy for a witness’s presence in the courtroom during trial testimony, an Illinois appellate court said in affirming a verdict.
April 25, 2024
Magistrate Judge Won’t Exclude Moline’s Supplemental Report In Asbestos-Talc Spat

NEW YORK — While disclosure of Jacqueline Moline’s 2023 study and her dose-calculation opinion were untimely, they were harmless because there is no evidence that her opinion changed, that the defendants were unaware of her opinions or that any prejudice the defendants would face cannot be remedied, a federal magistrate judge in New York said April 24 in denying a motion to exclude reliance on the supplemental material.