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

Mealey's Asbestos

October 27, 2023
Missouri Asbestos Defendant Seeks Appeal Of Workers’ Comp Exclusivity Ruling

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Because a man with personal knowledge of an insurance contract authenticated the document, a trial court imposed an undue burden on an employer seeking summary judgment under the workers’ compensation system’s exclusivity provision, a company tells a Missouri appeals court in an application for transfer to the state’s high court.
October 26, 2023
J&J Says Ruling Rejecting Asbestos-Talc Experts Bolsters Class Dismissal Motion

TRENTON, N.J. — Recent precedent overturning an asbestos verdict and rejecting expert testimony that the fibers detected in talc were asbestiform further supports a motion to dismiss a class action claiming that Johnson & Johnson concealed the presence of the mineral in its products, the company tells a federal judge in New Jersey in an Oct. 25 letter.
October 26, 2023
Kentucky High Court Grants Review, Consolidates J&J Talc Testimony Cases

FRANKFORT, Ky. — The Kentucky Supreme Court granted a cross-motion for review and consolidated two cases involving whether a corporate representative’s testimony about his personal use of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) talc products was relevant in an asbestos-talc case after a lower court granted a new trial based the testimony’s admission.
October 25, 2023
Damages Analysis Requires Looking At Past Awards, Louisiana High Court Says

NEW ORLEANS — Appellate courts analyzing whether a verdict constitutes an abuse of discretion must consider past awards, otherwise the process lacks any objective measure and appellate review becomes “redundant and unnecessary,” a divided Louisiana Supreme Court said in cutting an asbestos award to $5 million.
October 25, 2023
New York Top Court Won’t Reconsider Rejecting $120M Asbestos-Talc Appeal

NEW YORK — The New York Court of Appeals on Oct. 24 denied a motion for reargument of a motion for leave to appeal a finding that there was insufficient expert testimony that exposure would have significantly exceeded background levels for a jury’s $120 million asbestos verdict against two Johnson & Johnson entities.
October 25, 2023
Judge: Bankruptcy Stays Attorney Fees Motion In Asbestos Diagnosis Case

MISSOULA, Mont. — Because a railway’s motion for attorney fees in the wake of its successful pursuit of a False Claims Act case came before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) asbestos program provider’s bankruptcy, the request constitutes a claim against the debtor and falls under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code’s automatic stay, a federal judge in Montana said.
October 24, 2023
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.
October 23, 2023
Connecticut Court Breathes Life Back Into Asbestos Tort Against Employer

HARTFORD, Conn. — A divided Connecticut appeals court revived an asbestos tort action against an employer on Oct. 20, finding evidence that the company knew of the dangers of asbestos at its facility and never disclosed them while touting the need to follow federal regulations to others as its own testing repeatedly, if only infrequently, demonstrated that its failures to follow those regulations placed the case within the intentional tort exception to workers’ compensation exclusivity.
October 23, 2023
Bankruptcy Judge Denies Stay Relief For State Law Claims Against Georgia-Pacific

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A bid by a man with mesothelioma and his wife to bypass the automatic stay in the Chapter 11 case of Georgia-Pacific (GP) spinoff Bestwall LLC so they can pursue claims against GP in a New Jersey court failed when a North Caolina bankruptcy judge denied their motion for relief from the stay.
October 20, 2023
Plaintiff Will Appeal Maritime Asbestos Consortium, Punitive Damages Ruling

BOSTON — A widow told a federal judge in Massachusetts on Oct. 19 that she plans interlocutory appeals of the judge’s conclusion that maritime law precludes loss of consortium and punitive damage claims and says that finding pending motions moot as a result of the ruling would be premature. In its own status report filed the same day, defendant John Crane Inc. (JCI) says the ruling conclusively decides 10 pending evidentiary motions.
October 20, 2023
Supreme Court Wants Response To LHWCA ‘Twilight Zone’ Asbestos Petition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court asked a family of a maritime worker to respond to a petition for certiorari claiming that a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “result-driven” opinion allowing a worker to forego a Longshore Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) claim and pursue a tort claim under the law’s “twilight zone” doctrine ignores the far-reaching consequences of such a ruling.
October 19, 2023
Johnson & Johnson Entities Want Asbestos-Talc Allegations Stricken From Complaint

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Various Johnson & Johnson entities asked a Connecticut judge to strike asbestos-talc allegations from a complaint, saying that they never manufactured or sold baby powder and that liability for that conduct lies solely with LTL Management LLC.
October 18, 2023
Chief Bankruptcy Judge Stripped Of Cases After Attorney Relationship Disclosed

HOUSTON — A chief bankruptcy judge who served as a HONX Inc. asbestos bankruptcy mediator and oversaw a fracking bankruptcy will no longer hear cases after the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals filed an official complaint against him in the wake of the disclosure of a romantic relationship with a lawyer employed by counsel that appeared before him.
October 17, 2023
BNSF’s Common Carrier Argument In Libby, Mont., Asbestos Case Fails

GREAT FALLS, Mont. — Montana Supreme Court precedent collaterally estops Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Co. (BNSF) from arguing that as a common carrier it is immune from suit for certain Libby-related asbestos activities, a federal judge in Montana said Oct. 16.
October 17, 2023
Judge: Defendants May Re-Depose Mesothelioma Sufferer In Wake Of Kidney Cancer

OAKLAND, Calif. — A judge overseeing an asbestos case in California said defendants may re-depose a husband and wife given the length of time since the original depositions and his subsequent kidney cancer diagnosis.
October 16, 2023
Johnson & Johnson Spinoff, Talc Study Authors Argue Merits Of Fraud Claims

TRENTON, N.J. — Dismissal is warranted for fraud claims leveled by Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) former bankrupt affiliate LTL Management LLC against three pathologists over their study of mesothelioma patients because the company lacks standing, the court lacks jurisdiction and the claims fail as a matter of law, the doctors argue in a reply brief filed in New Jersey federal court in support of their motion to dismiss.
October 16, 2023
Judge: Construction Waste With Asbestos, Other Materials, Covered By CERCLA

CONCORD, N.H. — Building and construction waste containing arsenic, lead, selenium, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and asbestos qualifies as a hazardous substance under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act because those materials are specifically listed as such in the statute, a New Hampshire federal judge found Oct. 13 in partly granting a motion to dismiss filed by a municipality and a housing authority that are alleged to have contributed to contamination at a former landfill by dumping waste there.
October 16, 2023
Court Won’t Force Filing Of Asbestos Attorney’s Employment Allegations

LOS ANGELES — Redacted allegations in an employment action between an asbestos attorney and the firm he said fired him for complaining about witness coaching were never before the trial court and therefore can’t be unsealed, and the public has no interest in allegations shared only between parties to litigation, a California appeals court said Oct. 13 in denying a company’s request to unseal the redacted complaint.
October 16, 2023
Judge: Survival Damages Proceed, Punitive Damages Not Available In Maritime Law

BOSTON — A magistrate judge’s reasoning in allowing survival damages in a maritime asbestos case is not clearly wrong, but she erred in allowing loss of consortium damages for wrongful death and punitive damages by not following controlling precedent, a federal judge in Massachusetts said.
October 13, 2023
High Court Grants Cert For Insurer’s Challenge To Kaiser Gypsum Asbestos Bankruptcy

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 13 granted a petition for certiorari filed by the primary insurer of Chapter 11 asbestos debtors Kaiser Gypsum Co. Inc. and Hanson Permanente Cement Inc. over a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ ruling that the insurer lacks standing to challenge the debtors’ reorganization plan.
October 13, 2023
New Colon Cancer Diagnosis Delays Consolidated Lung Cancer Asbestos Trial

NEW YORK — A joint asbestos trial involving auto mechanics suffering from lung cancer will now occur in late November after one of the plaintiffs conceded that the need to produce new evidence related to a recent colon cancer diagnosis warranted adjourning the trial.
October 13, 2023
J&J Says Quick Asbestos-Talc Verdict Doesn’t Warrant New Trial

ST. LOUIS — Plaintiffs complaining that a jury returned a verdict in an asbestos-talc case too quickly point to no precedent that supports the conclusion that a jury must deliberate for any specific amount of time and simply want a redo at trial, two Johnson & Johnson entities tell a Missouri judge in opposing a motion for new trial.
October 13, 2023
New York Justice Seals Burnham’s Tax Returns Used In Asbestos Trial

NEW YORK — Public curiosity does not outweigh a desire to protect proprietary commercial information disclosed in a tax return produced for use in the punitive damages portion of an asbestos trial that produced a $38 million verdict, a New York justice said in sealing the evidence.
October 12, 2023
J&J Affiliate, Asbestos Talc Study Author Spar Over Fraud Claims

TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff LTL Management LLC’s arguments against dismissal of its trade libel, fraud and trademark law violation claims against the author of an asbestos talc study only serve to show that the company fails to state any valid claims and that her study “is a protected scientific opinion that is not actionable as a matter of law,” the author says in a reply in support of dismissal filed in New Jersey federal court.
October 11, 2023
Wisconsin Court Finds Questions About Insurance, Revives Suit Against Employer

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Because questions remain about whether a defendant employer accepted, paid for and received coverage under an enhanced insurance policy covering mesothelioma claims on the day a woman filed a workers’ compensation claim, summary judgment to the employer was inappropriate, a Wisconsin appeals court said Oct. 10.