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

Mealey's Asbestos

August 20, 2025
COMMENTARY: A Survey Of State Laws Regulating Third-Party Litigation Funding

By Mark A. Behrens and Christopher E. Appel
August 11, 2025
South Carolina Court Set To Consider New Trial Order In Asbestos-Talc Case

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Court of Appeals asked for the record on appeal and all final briefs and is set to decide whether a judge properly granted plaintiffs a new trial after they allegedly produced new evidence in an asbestos-talc case.
August 25, 2025
J&J, Talc Plaintiffs Debate Attempt To Strike Medical Monitoring Class

TRENTON, N.J. — Plaintiffs representing genital talc users in a New Jersey suit seeking a medical monitoring class and various Johnson & Johnson entities have briefed a motion to strike the claims and whether varying state laws, causation standards and individual situations made handling the claims as a class impossible.
August 25, 2025
New York Justice Orders New Trial On Apportionment After Trust Disclosures

NEW YORK — Two years after a jury awarded a man $28 million for asbestos exposures suffered at the World Trade Center, a New York justice ordered a new trial on apportionment, saying newly produced asbestos trust and settlement evidence likely would have altered the course of the trial. On Aug. 22, one of the defendants filed a notice of appeal from the decision.
August 22, 2025
Shipbuilder Wants Reconsideration Of Asbestos Remand Decision

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California ignored how the clock for federal officer removal works and failed to consider a declaration detailing the Navy’s control over the use of asbestos-containing products in granting a man’s motion for remand, a shipbuilder says in moving for leave to file for reconsideration.
August 22, 2025
Illinois Enacts Consent-To-Jurisdiction Law For Toxic Tort Suits

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Under legislation signed into law by Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, foreign corporations registering to do business in the state will have consented to general jurisdiction in toxic tort suits.
August 21, 2025
Trio Of Rulings Leaves Depositions Proceeding, Reduces Scope Of Another

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California allowed a reduced deposition of a corporate representative, saying there was no way to adequately prepare the witness on 73 topics in the time left but in a pair of docket-only orders declined to stay the deposition of two experts, finding that proceeding would not impose irreparable prejudice, the request did not comply with local rules and any stay would derail the trial date.
August 21, 2025
Louisiana Court Affirms $5M Bench Trial Award In Take-Home Asbestos Case

GRETNA, La. — While a trial judge improperly went outside the record after a bench trial to determine that a woman’s chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) could have been caused by asbestos rather than smoking cigarettes, the record supported the conclusion that COPD was only a contributing cause to a woman’s death and the judge’s resulting award of more than $5 million in damages, a divided Louisiana court said in affirming the judgment.
August 20, 2025
Judge Finds Agencies Immune From Asbestos Suit, Hospital Must Face Claims

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Two West Virginia agencies enjoy sovereign immunity from a woman’s suit alleging that exposure to asbestos during nursing school led her develop incurable lung cancer, but she sufficiently alleges intentional injury on the part of a hospital where she worked as a student, a federal judge in West Virginia said in denying one motion to dismiss but granting two others.
August 20, 2025
Shipyard Says Expert Testimony Goes Beyond Rejected Yearsley Defense

NEW ORLEANS — An expert’s testimony about U.S. Navy oversight of a shipyard’s asbestos use goes beyond rejected federal contractor defenses and can be useful on the issue of negligence, the defendant tells a federal judge in Louisiana in a sur-reply opposing exclusion.
August 18, 2025
Judge Says Jury Can Hear Hysterectomy Evidence In Asbestos-Talc Case

LOS ANGELES — A judge in Los Angeles set trial for Aug. 25 after denying a motion to exclude testimony that a woman’s mesothelioma spread to her ovaries necessitating a hysterectomy, saying the defendants may cross-examine any experts and physicians about the need for the procedure.
August 15, 2025
Man: J&J Can’t Revoke Talc Documents’ Authenticity Agreement After Discovery

BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — Johnson & Johnson entities avoided formal discovery by agreeing to acknowledge the authenticity of produced business records in more than 40 asbestos cases and should not now be allowed to revoke that admission after the close of discovery in one of the cases, a man tells a judge in Connecticut in an Aug. 14 motion.
August 15, 2025
Judge Won’t Limit Asbestos Trial By Ruling On Expert Pathology Issues

LOS ANGELES — An asbestos coordinating judge said he would not tie a trial court’s hands by precluding a family from objecting if Johnson & Johnson entities cite tissue digestion studies in an asbestos-talc case and the trial court can determine whether a second expert’s deposition testimony can be shown to a jury, a California judge said in denying a motion.
August 13, 2025
9-Year Delay In Asbestos Case Warranted Dismissal, Court Affirms

JACKSON, Miss. — A nine-year period where a plaintiff litigated asbestos bankruptcy issues in a separate court but took no substantive steps in her tort litigation in Mississippi warranted a trial court’s dismissal of the action in its entirety for lack of prosecution, the Mississippi Court of Appeals said Aug. 12 in affirming.
August 12, 2025
South Carolina Court Set To Consider New Trial Order In Asbestos-Talc Case

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The South Carolina Court of Appeals asked for the record on appeal and all final briefs and is set to decide whether a judge properly granted plaintiffs a new trial after they allegedly produced new evidence in an asbestos-talc case.
August 12, 2025
Foster Wheeler Must Correct Asbestos Verdict Appeal, Pa. Superior Court Says

PITTSBURGH — The Pennsylvania Superior Court directed a trial court to enter judgment in two cases consolidated with a third that produced a $3.8 million asbestos verdict plus delay damages and that liable party Foster Wheeler LLC can then appeal from the proper judgments.
August 12, 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.
August 11, 2025
Judge Won’t Certify Immediate Appeal In Asbestos Insurance Spat

NEW ORLEANS — A federal judge in Louisiana said that while an immediate appeal might alleviate the need for trial later this year on claims between a settled asbestos defendant and its insured, the burden posed by any appeal outweighs that of the anticipated one-day trial from which an appeal could be taken.
August 11, 2025
Talc, Other Expert Opinions Largely Admitted In Dentist’s Asbestos Suit

LOS ANGELES — A California judge said punitive damages will be bifurcated according to California law but otherwise admitted testimony in a former dentist’s asbestos personal injury case, saying that experts may call upon training and experience and that studies on which they rely need not be identical to real world situations. In a trial brief, a dental supply company told the court that any potential exposure from its periodontal packs in the late 1960s and 1970s would have been too small to cause mesothelioma.
August 07, 2025
Oregon Talc Plaintiffs Say No Errors Worthy Of Reducing Damages, New Trial

PORTLAND, Ore. — An Oregon appeals court denied a motion to expedite an asbestos-talc appeal by declining to deviate from a briefing schedule, while the couple that was awarded $260 million said there were insufficient grounds or evidence of misconduct to reduce the award or order a new trial.
August 06, 2025
After Failed Attempt To Resolve Asbestos-Talc Question, Case Set For State Trial

SAN FRANCISCO — An asbestos case is back in California state court and set for a September trial after a winding road took it to a federal bankruptcy court in Texas where removal was found procedurally improper and then to a federal court in California, where the parties agreed to remand.
August 07, 2025
Judge Cites ‘Unique Relevance,’ Largely Declines To Strike Asbestos Witnesses

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California struck eight of 24 witnesses in an asbestos case but said the “unique relevance” of two others and the fact that the defendants appeared equally liable for an untimely deposition of a third warrants allowing their testimony.
August 06, 2025
Judge Says Evidence Doesn’t Invoke Indemnity Clause In Asbestos Dispute

RALEIGH, N.C. — A man’s testimony and pay records fall short of showing his asbestos exposure at a paper mill came while he was employed by a contractor under a 1971 contract requiring the contractor to indemnify the mill from related losses, a federal judge in North Carolina said in granting the latter summary judgment in a redacted Aug. 5 opinion.
August 06, 2025
Florida Judge Permits Whole Genome Testing In Consumer Talc Meso Case

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Two defendants may obtain a blood sample to perform whole genome genetic testing of a 33-year-old mesothelioma sufferer, a judge in Florida said in granting the request and overruling the plaintiffs’ objection.
August 04, 2025
Medical Provider Drops Fee Request In Asbestos Expert Subpoena Case

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — In a joint submission with an asbestos defendant, a medical provider on Aug. 1 said it would no longer seek attorney fees, saying that even though a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling didn’t eliminate the trial court’s award, it would withdraw its request on which it was awarded $44,610.45 in an effort to resolve the case.