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August 11, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Parties wrapped briefing on whether a California court considering the consolidated asbestos-talc litigation has jurisdiction over Johnson & Johnson entity Kenvue Inc., with plaintiffs telling the Second District California Court of Appeal that the company is liable as a successor and the defendant arguing that under Texas law, the liabilities lie elsewhere.
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August 11, 2026
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.
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August 11, 2026
LOS ANGELES — Plaintiffs in a mesothelioma action told a California judge that a defendant cannot tell a jury that a woman’s genetics caused her disease after the judge shut down the defendants’ motion seeking whole genome genetic testing.
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August 11, 2026
LOCKPORT, N.Y. — A New York justice found store-brand talc company Vi-Jon LLC in default after a bench trial and awarded a couple $16,750,487, according to documents filed in the Niagara County Supreme Court. Vi-Jon declared bankruptcy less than a month later.
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August 11, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — In a report to the South Carolina Supreme Court, the justice overseeing asbestos litigation in the state tells the court that a lawyer’s allegations that his clients were not present for mediation “is totally untrue.”
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August 11, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A trial court properly denied a motion for reconsideration without considering whether newly produced expert testimony on a man’s health warranted revisiting a ruling denying him an expedited trial date, a Louisiana appellate court said.
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August 10, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — On remand, the Board of Veterans’ Appeals must explain its interpretation of a 2007 decision denying benefits and why it discounted evidence of asbestos exposure, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims said in vacating a ruling involving a veteran’s claim.
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August 10, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia granted partial summary judgment to an asbestos organization, finding that there was no question that government agencies missed the deadline for responding to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests involving asbestos-abatement measures taken during the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, but said he would order only a status report and not immediate production since the government appears to be close to complying with the law.
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August 06, 2026
NEW YORK — Stating that an insurance exchange “should not be permitted to escape the economic consequences of its conduct,” a group of intervening reinsurers asked a New York federal court to award approximately $2 million in attorney fees and costs arising from the exchange’s failed attempt to disqualify an attorney who previously represented the exchange from serving as the reinsurers’ party-appointed arbitrator in a reinsurance dispute, contending that the exchange violated a hold-harmless agreement in which it promised not to sue the arbitrator.
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August 04, 2026
WILMINGTON, Del. — Repeat litigants in asbestos litigation have not identified a sufficiently specific or anticipated claim under which a court can require asbestos bankruptcy trusts to preserve claims data under an equitable bill of discovery, the Delaware Supreme Court said in reversing and remanding for dismissal of the action.
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August 03, 2026
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — The Connecticut Appellate Court denied a motion to dismiss an appeal by Johnson & Johnson entities challenging a $25 million asbestos verdict just days after the companies filed an opening brief arguing, among other things, that the trial judge improperly excluded fact-based testimony about Johnson & Johnson’s belief that its talc was safe offered to demonstrate the company’s state of mind and not as scientific fact.
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August 03, 2026
NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana entered judgment in favor of a family after they accepted remittitur of their $6.6 million asbestos verdict against shipyard Huntington Ingalls Inc. f/k/a Avondale Inc. to $3.9 million.
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July 30, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Pecos River Talc LLC and two other Johnson & Johnson entities told a federal judge in New Jersey that federal law preempts expert Jacqueline Moline’s anti-Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation counterclaim against them and that their case claiming that she made fraudulent allegations about the use of talc and mesothelioma doesn’t target her speech but her allegedly false allegations.
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July 29, 2026
NEW YORK — Writing that “the only appropriate remedy is dismissal,” a New York federal judge dismissed with prejudice an insurance exchange’s suit seeking to disqualify a reinsurer-appointed arbitrator based on his prior representation, ruling that a hold-harmless agreement barred the insurance exchange from bringing the lawsuit against the appointed arbitrator and a group of reinsurers.
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July 28, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson on July 27 announced an agreement in which the company would pay $5.5 billion to resolve the multidistrict ovarian cancer talc litigation and related state proceedings, saying in a press release that the agreement covers some 76,000 claims.
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July 28, 2026
BISMARCK, N.D. — Registering to do business in North Dakota alone does not create jurisdiction in the state, the North Dakota Supreme Court held in affirming dismissal of an asbestos action against Union Carbide Corp.
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July 28, 2026
Every year, the Mealey’s Litigation Report: Asbestos compiles, analyzes and reports on verdict information appearing in the report from the previous calendar year. The following report contains that information.
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July 28, 2026
SEATTLE — A former Washington pulp mill owner declared bankruptcy, just weeks after a jury in the state awarded an asbestos abatement worker exposed outside of his work area at the mill’s facility $20.9 million. The liable defendant, Simpson Tacoma Kraft Co., filed for bankruptcy in May and recently sought to employ a chief restructuring officer.
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July 28, 2026
COLUMBIA, S.C. — Companies challenging the Cape PLC receivership in South Carolina told the state high court in a pair of petitions for rehearing that the court misinterpreted the ruling appointing a receiver and argued that affirming the ruling created a constitutional conflict by allowing a state court to exercise control over a foreign company without jurisdiction. In a pair of letters filed in the case, two attorneys debated the conduct of a second company over which a receiver was appointed, Asbestos Corporation Limited.
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July 28, 2026
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.
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July 28, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Johnson & Johnson entities asked a federal court in New Jersey for additional time to object to a special master’s recommendation allowing some of asbestos expert William Longo’s testimony in the federal multidistrict litigation. The Plaintiffs’ Steering Committee (PSC) said in a subsequent filing that it didn’t oppose the extension but asked that it be applied to all parties.
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July 28, 2026
LONDON — Plaintiffs in mesothelioma and ovarian cancer cases alleging that their diseases were the result of exposure to consumer talc may amend their allegations to clarify iron’s role in causation but may not amend their allegations involving platy talc, judges on the King’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales said.
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July 27, 2026
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — A World War II-era U.S. Navy epidemiological study finding work with asbestos-containing insulation on ships was not a dangerous occupation should finally be retracted, a researcher says in a June article.
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July 24, 2026
TRENTON, N.J. — Ovarian cancer plaintiffs in the federal multidistrict litigation must show why all of the cases in the action should not be dismissed for failure to produce admissible expert specific causation testimony, a magistrate judge said in an order to show cause.
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July 23, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal magistrate judge granted summary judgment in favor of a U.K.-based reinsurer after determining that the statute of limitations on an assignee’s reinsurance billing claims began in October 2001 when the reinsurer sent a letter denying the validity of the claims, rendering the assignee’s September 2023 demand for $403,748.42 time-barred.