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Mealey's Asbestos

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.
March 26, 2024
Chicago Jury Awards $7.43M To Brick Mason With Mesothelioma

CHCAGO — An Illinois jury returned a $7.4 million verdict for a former brick mason suffering from mesothelioma, finding that exposure to hot top boards used in the steel-making process was the cause of his disease, sources told Mealey’s Publications.
March 26, 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.
March 25, 2024
Asbestos Verdict Appeal Briefing Wraps As Kaiser Gypsum Exits

LOS ANGELES — In an appeal of a jury verdict, a California appeals court dismissed one asbestos defendant after a notice of settlement was filed, while briefing wrapped up over the appropriateness of the jury apportioning zero liability to a company it concluded was a substantial factor in a man’s mesothelioma.
March 22, 2024
Merchant Marine Loses Appeal Of Expert, Summary Judgment Rulings In Asbestos Case

NEW ORLEANS — A former Merchant Marine’s concession that he had no memory of exposure to asbestos and simply assumed it based on the mineral’s widespread use falls short of the threshold for success and warranted exclusion of his experts and summary judgment in favor of various ship owners, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in affirming.
March 22, 2024
Pennsylvania Top Court Set To Decide Application Of Occupational Law’s Exclusivity

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Similarly situated plaintiffs moved to appear at oral arguments after briefing wrapped up in a case where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will decide whether the exclusivity provision in the state’s occupational disease law precludes a man’s tort action even when the four-year statute of limitations precludes him from recovering under the statute.
March 21, 2024
Judge Orders BAP 1 Genetic Testing In California Asbestos Case

LOS ANGELES — Evidence of whether a man carries the BAP 1 genetic mutation and its potential role in his mesothelioma go to a core issue in an asbestos case and cannot be obtained in any other way, a California judge said in granting a motion to compel and ordering a saliva test and associated genetic testing.
March 21, 2024
Plaintiff, W.R. Grace Trust Debate Proper Place For Tort Claim

MISSOULA, Mo. — W.R. Grace & Co.’s asbestos trust and a former nonbinding arbitration claimant briefed a Montana federal court on whether resolution of his tort claim simply seeks a declaration of the disease from which he suffers or would require interpretation of the bankruptcy trust’s distribution procedures and therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the bankruptcy court.
March 19, 2024
English Court Affirms Employer Foreseeability Rulings In Asbestos Cases

LONDON — A trial court judge properly evaluated evidence in concluding that the pre-1960s exposures two individuals experienced did not rise to the level required to find that their injuries were foreseeable to their employers, an appellate court in England found in affirming dismissal of the actions.
March 19, 2024
EPA Finalizes Rule Banning Last Remaining Uses Of Chrysotile Asbestos

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Environmental Protection Agency has banned the ongoing use of chrysotile asbestos, the last type of asbestos to have its importation, processing and distribution banned in the United States and the first time the government has finalized a rule under the 2016 amendments to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), according to a March 18 press release by the agency.
March 19, 2024
Retrial Of California Asbestos Case Ends In Defense Verdict

SAN FRANCISCO — A jury in San Francisco returned a defense verdict for John Crane Inc. in a mesothelioma case originally tried virtually to a hung jury during the coronavirus pandemic.
March 18, 2024
Supplier Seeks Judgment In Asbestos Liability Case Involving Insolvent Insurer

NEW ORLEANS — A purported supplier of asbestos-containing products moved for partial summary judgment and filed a brief in support in an asbestos liability suit against it, the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) and multiple other parties over a man’s exposure to asbestos resulting from his work at a shipyard, asserting that partial summary judgment should be granted because the purported supplier was not a “professional vendor.”
March 13, 2024
Facing Revived Asbestosis Case, Employer Wants Deeper Look From Court

HOUSTON — In a motion for rehearing, an employer who saw claims in a Texas asbestosis case against it revived says the appellate court should now rule on the additional grounds it raised for summary judgment in the trial court.
March 13, 2024
Panel: Instruction Didn’t Prevent Asbestos Plaintiffs From Arguing Ongoing Duty

SEATTLE — Even though a judge did not instruct a jury that a manufacturer operates under an ongoing duty to warn about the dangers of its product, nothing in the instructions that were given imposed a time limit on such a duty or prevented the plaintiffs from arguing that a crane company failed in its duty, a Washington appeals court said in affirming a defense verdict.