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

Mealey's Asbestos

July 08, 2025
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.
July 07, 2025
California Jury Returns Defense Verdict In Asbestos Pipe Case

OAKLAND, Calif. — A California jury returned a verdict for a company battling an asbestos-pipe case, finding that while the company’s product contained potentially knowable risks, an ordinary customer would have recognized them and that the defendant’s failure to warn about them was not a substantial factor in the man’s mesothelioma.
July 07, 2025
Judge: Asbestos Case May Fall Within ‘Twilight Zone’; Family May Clarify Claims

NEW ORLEANS — Because a man allegedly suffered asbestos exposures in the 1970s, his survivors’ claims might fall within the “twilight zone” of concurrent jurisdiction for Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) claims, a federal judge in Louisiana said in denying a motion to dismiss and granting leave to amend to clarify claims. The plaintiffs were later granted an extension of time to file their amended action.
July 07, 2025
Pennsylvania Court: Fiber Drift Theory Can’t Save Asbestos Laundry Case

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Evidence that a company installed an asbestos-containing furnace in a separate room from where a man worked and citation to the fiber drift theory are not sufficient evidence on which to create liability based on laundering the man’s work clothing, a Pennsylvania court said in an unpublished opinion affirming a summary judgment ruling.
July 07, 2025
Judge Denies Intervention, Dismisses Asbestos Suit By Family Members

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — Two individuals who were not appointed as representatives of a man’s estate cannot maintain a wrongful death action on his behalf, a federal judge in Indiana said in denying a motion to intervene and granting a motion to dismiss.
July 07, 2025
San Diego: City Can’t Conceal What Employees Already Knew About Asbestos

SAN DIEGO — San Diego couldn’t have concealed from employees their own complaints about potential asbestos exposures during a building renovation, and the workers’ compensation system is therefore the exclusive remedy, the city tells a California appeals court.
July 07, 2025
Asbestos-Talc Company Wants Full Genetic Testing Of Mesothelioma Sufferer

LOS ANGELES — Having successfully blocked a 40-year-old mesothelioma sufferer’s attempt to gain trial preference, an asbestos-talc defendant asked a California judge to compel full genetic testing, saying it was the only way to get to the heart of causation and damages in the case.
July 07, 2025
States Back Asbestos Defendants Seeking To Stop Trust Document Destruction

WILMINGTON, Del. — Ten states in an amicus curiae brief tell a judge in Delaware that destruction of asbestos trust documents would encourage fraud and mismanagement and undercut state laws determining that such evidence is relevant and discoverable in pending and potential asbestos personal injury suits.
July 02, 2025
Release Applied Only To Asbestos, Doesn’t Bar FELA Suit, Delaware Judge Says

WILMINGTON, Del. — A 1987 release in a fear-of-cancer case contemplated only asbestos exposures and asbestos-related diseases and does not preclude a subsequent suit under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA) for non-Hodgkin lymphoma arising from exposure to diesel fumes and benzene, a Delaware judge said in denying summary judgment.
July 02, 2025
Judge: Evidence Shows Pipe Use But Not Asbestos Exposure At Camp Lejeune

SALISBURY, N.C. — While there is evidence that a man worked with pipe at Camp Lejeune, the record does not support the conclusion that it contained asbestos or that fittings would have been used often enough or in a way that released asbestos, a federal judge in North Carolina said July 1 in granting summary judgment.
July 02, 2025
Judge Stays Sale Of Asbestos Screeners’ Assets For Now

MISSOULA, Mont. — The sale of Center for Asbestos Related Disease Inc. assets is on hold after a federal judge granted a motion to intervene by former employees and the United States but ultimately denied a motion to quash or enjoin a writ of execution seeking sale of the screening company’s assets to satisfy a million-dollar judgment stemming from its submission of fraudulent claims to a Medicare program.
June 20, 2025
Massachusetts Jury Awards $8 Million In J&J Talc Case

MIDDLESEX, Mass. — A Massachusetts jury awarded a woman $8 million for her mesothelioma, finding Johnson & Johnson and a related entity negligent and liable for breach of the implied warranty of merchantability with regard to two of its consumer talc products.
June 20, 2025
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.
June 19, 2025
Connecticut Judge To Hold Additional Argument On J&J Successor Liability Question

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A Connecticut judge considering punitive damages and motions for a new trial and judgment notwithstanding the verdict in the wake of a $15 million asbestos-talc award ordered parties to come up with dates for additional argument on the issue of successor liability for Johnson & Johnson, choice of law and the status of LLT Management LLC as a defendant.
June 18, 2025
EPA Wants Case Stayed Longer While It Reconsiders Asbestos Ban Rule

NEW ORLEANS — The Environmental Protection Agency and its new administrator asked the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to extend a stay by six months while it reassesses a rule banning the last remaining uses of chrysotile asbestos in the United States.
June 17, 2025
Parties Ask Court For Ruling On Reduced Bond In Connecticut Asbestos Case

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Parties to a $22.5 million asbestos-talc verdict filed a request asking a judge in Connecticut to rule on their motion to modify a prejudgment remedy, saying that they have agreed that the $15 million in appellate bonds already filed by Vanderbilt Minerals Inc. is sufficient.
June 16, 2025
Insurer Wants Immediate Appeal Of Attorney Fees Ruling

NEW ORLEANS — An employer and insurer originally party to a federal asbestos case in Louisiana filed a joint letter spelling out remaining issues in advance of the scheduled July 7 trial while the insurer asked the court to certify for immediate appeal a ruling on liability for attorney fees and costs associated with its insureds’ defense of the claims.
June 16, 2025
Supreme Court Agrees To Decide Federal Officer Removal Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 16 agreed to decide the scope of the federal officer removal statute after granting oil companies’ petition contending that their drilling and related operations during World War II were sufficiently “related to” government contracts for federal jurisdiction over claims that their actions deviated from prudent industry practices.
June 16, 2025
North Carolina Court Affirms Merger-Liability Workers’ Comp Decision

RALEIGH, N.C. — A workers’ compensation commission properly concluded that a successor company was liable for a workers’ compensation claim and that its settlement resolved those liabilities and that there was no reason to include the state’s self-insurance entity as a party, a divided panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals said.
June 13, 2025
Split Louisiana Panel Reverses Judgment For Insurer In Asbestos Liability Dispute

NEW ORLEANS — A split Louisiana appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court’s ruling granting summary judgment to an insurer and to the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (LIGA) but denying a motion for partial summary judgment filed by family members in a dispute over their deceased relative’s death purportedly from asbestos exposure, finding that issues of fact remain regarding the failure of the insurer and LIGA to show the applicability of a certain policy exclusion to bar coverage.
June 13, 2025
South Carolina High Court Shortens Time To Respond To Cape LLC Sanction Motion

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Supreme Court rescinded an order issued earlier in the day that extended the deadline for returns on motions for sanctions and to strike notices of supplemental authority in a dispute over a receivership for asbestos defendant Cape LLC and issued an amended order setting the deadline for a week earlier.
June 12, 2025
Responsibility For Deposition Delays At Issue In Asbestos Briefing

LOS ANGELES — Parties to a California federal court asbestos action recently wrapped up briefing over whether 24 witnesses — two of which were identified through newspaper advertisements — were adequately and timely disclosed or whether the defendants delayed taking depositions as part of a litigation strategy so they could seek to strike the witnesses.
June 12, 2025
Vague Discovery Responses Free Shipping Companies From Asbestos Suit, Judge Says

LOS ANGELES — Summary judgment for four shipping companies on the grounds that discovery responses were factually devoid leaves only three defendants for an upcoming trial likely to last nearly three weeks, a California judge said in minute order.
June 11, 2025
Plaintiffs: Strong Advocacy, Not Talc Antics, At Heart Of Pro Hac Vice Opposition

TRENTON, N.J. — Strong client advocacy is no reason to deny attorneys pro hac vice status, and a bankruptcy judge already evaluated and rejected Johnson & Johnson entities’ allegations of improper conduct by those lawyers, plaintiffs in a class action seeking medical monitoring for those exposed to consumer talc products tell a federal judge in New Jersey.
June 10, 2025
Washington Supreme Court Lowers Deliberate Injury Standard For Latent Diseases

SEATTLE — A divided Washington Supreme Court overturned precedent requiring actual knowledge that a disease will arise, saying that in latent disease cases such as mesothelioma, employees need only show that it was a virtual certainty that a disease would arise to sue employers under the deliberate injury exception to the workers’ compensation system.