Newsletter RSS

Mealey's Asbestos

  • July 15, 2025

    Judge Won’t Revisit Asbestos Rulings; Parties Can Brief Yearsley

    SHREVEPORT, La. — A federal judge in Louisiana declined to reconsider two rulings denying summary judgment in nuclear weapons specialist’s asbestos case but said unresolved issues can be addressed in future briefing on immunity under Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Const. Co., 309 U.S. 18, 20 (1940).

  • July 15, 2025

    EPA Withdraws Motion To Stay Challenge To Asbestos Ban Rule

    NNEW ORLEANS — The Environmental Protection Agency withdrew its motion seeking a six-month stay of challenges to a rule banning the last remaining uses of chrysotile asbestos in the United States, saying it no longer intends to conduct notice-and-comment rulemaking and would instead proposed an Aug. 8 deadline for motions governing further proceedings.

  • July 15, 2025

    Summary Judgment Motions Granted For Insurer, Shipbuilder In Asbestos Coverage Row

    NEW ORLEANS — A Louisiana federal judge granted separate motions filed by a former shipbuilder and by the purported insurer for the shipbuilder’s prior executive officers seeking summary judgment in a mesothelioma patient’s asbestos liability suit against numerous parties, including a now-insolvent insurer, finding that the unopposed motions and the record establish “that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact.”

  • July 10, 2025

    Experts Must Produce Names Of Meso Study Subjects To J&J Spinoff, Magistrate Says

    NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Plaintiffs’ asbestos experts accused of trade libel by Johnson & Johnson spinoff Pecos River Talc LLC must produce the names of mesothelioma study participants because their identities “are relevant, proportional to the needs of the case, and are not privileged,” a Virginia federal magistrate judge ruled.

  • July 08, 2025

    J&J Entities Say No Injury In Talc Asset Transfer Case

    TRENTON, N.J. — Having successfully defeated bankruptcy attempts by arguing that there were sufficient funds to pay asbestos-talc claims, plaintiffs cannot now argue that fraudulent transfers have placed assets outside their reach, Johnson & Johnson entities tell a federal judge in New Jersey in seeking dismissal.

  • 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.