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Mealey's Asbestos

  • April 18, 2024

    Court: Positive Outlook Doesn’t Outweigh Disclosures In Asbestos Securities Class

    NEW YORK — Even while putting a positive spin on Garrett Motion Inc.’s future, the company repeatedly warned investors about the dire financial situation posed by the asbestos-related liabilities it acquired in its spinoff from Honeywell International Inc., and the company was unlikely to believe it could mislead the market given the public nature of its information, the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said April 17 in affirming dismissal of a securities class action.

  • April 18, 2024

    Punitive Damages Survive Directed Verdict Bid In Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — A railway can face punitive damages for the conduct of its predecessors at a Libby, Mont., mine under Montana law, and there has been sufficient evidence at trial that the railway or its predecessors knew of the risks of asbestos for the claim to go to a jury, a federal judge said April 17 in denying a motion for a directed verdict.

  • April 17, 2024

    Judge Rules On Judgment Motions In Asbestos Suit Involving Guaranty Association

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge denied summary judgment to two suppliers of asbestos products in an asbestos liability suit against them, the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) and multiple other parties over a man’s exposure to asbestos resulting from his work at a shipyard, finding that fact questions remain as to “whether the decedent was exposed to asbestos products manufactured” by these two suppliers.

  • April 16, 2024

    Judge Won’t Dismiss Loss Of Consortium Claim From Widow’s Navy Asbestos Case

    BOSTON — In an electronic court note, a federal judge in Massachusetts denied a motion to dismiss a widow’s loss of consortium claim from a Navy-exposure asbestos case, granted the defendant additional time to brief the issue and said next month’s trial would likely take two weeks.

  • April 15, 2024

    Paper Mill, Contractor Debate Discovery Scope In Asbestos Indemnity Action

    RALEIGH, N.C. — In opposing a motion to compel production of evidence tied to its possible negligence, a paper product company tells a federal judge in North Carolina that it owed no duty to the employee of a contractor and is entitled to contractual indemnification for defending and ultimately settling the asbestos-related claim, the company says.

  • April 15, 2024

    John Crane Says Evidence Falls Short In $1.75M Asbestos Verdict

    SPARTANBURG, S.C. — The encapsulated asbestos in gaskets and packing could not have caused a man’s fatal exposure to asbestos, but even if they did, there is no evidence that a warning would have prevented it, and the lack of action by the worker, his employers and related premises owners are all superseding causes, John Crane Inc. told a South Carolina judge in a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict after a $1.75 million verdict.

  • April 11, 2024

    Plaintiffs, 11 Defendants Resolve Take-Home Asbestos Case At Trial’s Outset

    NEW ORLEANS — A woman’s survivors who claimed that she suffered exposure to asbestos on the clothing of her husband who worked at Avondale Shipyards and 11 defendants settled at the outset of a trial originally projected to take five weeks but that a federal judge in Louisiana ordered completed in three weeks.

  • April 11, 2024

    Pennsylvania Court Affirms Causation, Faults Asbestos Verdict Apportionment

    HARRISBURG, Pa. — A plaintiff produced sufficient evidence at trial that the product a woman used at her salon contained asbestos-tainted Italian talc, but in apportioning liability, the trial court ran afoul of the state’s Fair Share Act, a Pennsylvania appeals court said April 10 in reversing the judgment and remanding for reapportionment.

  • April 10, 2024

    Reconsideration Bid Denied, Default Judgment Granted In Reimbursement Dispute

    OMAHA, Neb. — Deciding against a Brazil-based reinsurer on two motions in a March 9 amended ruling, a Nebraska federal judge entered judgment for plaintiff National Indemnity Co. (NICO) on all claims in a suit over reimbursement for a settlement reached with Montana regarding alleged asbestos exposure.

  • April 10, 2024

    Viability Of UCL Class Action Involving Asbestos And Talc Rests With 9th Circuit

    SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals heard oral arguments over whether allegations of a decades-long advertising campaign about the safety and purity of talcum powder sufficiently specifies the advertising in question and saves a California unfair competition law (UCL) class action alleging that in reality the products contained asbestos and other contaminants.

  • April 10, 2024

    J&J Entities Say They Have No Talc-Related Liabilities

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Talc liabilities followed a separate Johnson & Johnson entity and under Texas law cannot be attributed to three other companies, the companies argue in a motion to strike the asbestos-talc claims against them in a Connecticut court.

  • April 09, 2024

    Retired CARD Director Says BNSF Deposition Went Off The Rails

    GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Despite agreeing to limit deposition questions to mesothelioma and relevant issues, a railway asked a retired director of a medical clinic about unrelated diseases and practices, the man tells a federal judge in Montana in seeking a protective order and sanctions.

  • April 09, 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.

  • April 08, 2024

    John Crane Seeks Fees In Wake Of Asbestos Verdict In Illinois Federal Trial

    CHICAGO — John Crane Inc. asks a federal judge in Illinois for more than $40,000 in expert witness and other fees after a jury handed it a defense verdict in a maritime plaintiffs’ asbestos case.

  • April 08, 2024

    Trial Kicks Off After Judge Denies Vanderbilt’s Causation, Successor Arguments

    BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Trial in a case is under way after a judge in Connecticut denied a motion for summary judgment, saying Vanderbilt Minerals Inc. had not eliminated the possibility that its products caused a man’s asbestos-related disease or that it could not be held liable as a successor to a company whose assets it purchased.

  • April 08, 2024

    Connecticut Judge Consolidates Asbestos Injury Cases Against Former Employer

    HARTFORD, Conn. — A judge in Connecticut consolidated four asbestos cases, turning aside the former employer defendant’s argument that the “superficial” similarities between the cases did not overcome the challenges posed by the presence of the certain injury exception to workers’ compensation law and that any trial would leave the jury with the “herculean task” of sorting through the evidence.

  • April 08, 2024

    Boston Law Firm, Founders Defend Judge’s Finding In Asbestos Records Spat

    BOSTON — Jury instructions permit the conclusion that a jury found taking files from a former employer unfair but that it also concluded that those files were never used by the new law firm, and the judge overseeing the retrial was perfectly within his discretion to hold a bench trial on the issue on remand, appellees tell a Massachusetts appellate court.

  • April 08, 2024

    Competing Expert Testimony Can’t Save Secondhand Asbestos Case, Justice Says

    NEW YORK — Even competing expert testimony cannot save a case alleging that a man suffered secondhand asbestos exposure from his brother, the New York justice overseeing a case against an oven company said.

  • April 04, 2024

    Justice: Canadian Family Can Keep Asbestos Action In New York

    NEW YORK — A Canadian family’s asbestos case will stay in New York after a state court justice found the lack of any evidence of witness inconvenience and the allegation that at least some purchases occurred in New York make the state a proper forum for litigating the action.

  • April 03, 2024

    Judge Denies Additional Genetic Mutation Testing In Mesothelioma Case

    LOS ANGELES — A defendant previously granted BAP-1 testing in a mesothelioma case should have requested the mutation testing it now seeks when it first sought testing, and there is too little time remaining to conduct the additional testing it now seeks, a California judge said in denying the request.

  • April 02, 2024

    Texas Court Won’t Reconsider Adjacent Issues In Revived Asbestosis Causation Case

    HOUSTON — An appeal of a no-evidence summary judgment ruling on substantial factor causation in an asbestosis case did not address other issues in the case, and the issues the employer raises on reconsideration were never briefed, a Texas appellate court said in an April 2 per curiam opinion denying reconsideration.

  • April 01, 2024

    Railway Says Montana Asbestos Screener Stuck ‘Head In Sand’

    MISSOULA, Mont. — Evidence introduced at trial showed a Libby, Mont., medical facility must have known the B-read-only and other claims it submitted to a special asbestos-related Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) program were not a diagnosis and were fraudulent, and it cannot avoid liability by claiming it was simply doing its best when in reality it was sticking its head in the sand over the program’s requirements, a railway tells the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in a March 29 answering brief.

  • March 28, 2024

    Asbestos-Talc MDL Judge: Changes To Landscape Require Refiling Of Daubert Motions

    TRENTON, N.J. — Changes in science and federal rules of evidence since a 2020 opinion on the admissibility of experts in the federal multidistrict asbestos-talc litigation warrant the refiling of Daubert motions, the federal judge overseeing the litigation said in a March 27 text-only order.

  • March 27, 2024

    South Carolina Jury Returns $1.75M Asbestos Verdict Against John Crane

    SPARTANBURG, S.C. — A South Carolina jury awarded $1.75 million to a widow whose husband developed mesothelioma and died after exposure to asbestos in John Crane Inc. gaskets, finding the company liable for negligence but not strict liability.

  • March 26, 2024

    4th Circuit Says No Rehearing In Asbestos Coverage Row With Guaranty Association

    RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied an insurer’s request for rehearing and rehearing en banc of the court’s ruling dismissing the insurer’s appeal of a district court’s order remanding to state court a receiver’s asbestos coverage suit against insurers and the South Carolina Property and Casualty Insurance Guaranty Association.