Mealey's Asbestos
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March 21, 2025
Florida Jury Awards $18M In Asbestos Case Against Brake Grinding Manufacturer
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida jury awarded $18 million to a woman suffering from malignant epithelioid mesothelioma, finding that brake grinding machine manufacturer Hennessy Industries Inc.’s negligence caused her take-home exposures and apportioning it 15% of the liability. VIDEO FROM THE TRIAL IS AVAILABLE.
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March 21, 2025
Asbestos Pipe Maker Settles Delaware Case, Resolves Adverse Instruction Spat
WILMINGTON, Del. — An asbestos pipe maker in the process of seeking reargument of a ruling granting an adverse instruction about the company’s destruction of corporate documents moved to dismiss the case, saying it resolved the case and a host of others.
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March 21, 2025
Federal Judge Dismisses RICO Case Against Asbestos Plaintiffs’ Firm
CHICAGO — Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) claims brought against an asbestos plaintiffs’ law firm never adequately identify the enterprise in question or how the entities operated, a federal judge in Illinois said in dismissing the federal claims and declining to exercise jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims.
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March 20, 2025
New York Court Affirms Causation, Punitive Damages In Asbestos Boiler Case
NEW YORK — Testimony from an industrial hygienist and thoracic surgeon satisfied the specific causation standard in New York, and there was no error in not precluding a boiler company from cross-examining the surgeon about exposures for which it had not established liability, a New York appellate court said while finding punitive damages appropriate and the damages not beyond what a reasonable person would expect.
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March 20, 2025
Discovery Violations Lead To Default, $16.2M Verdict In Washington Asbestos Case
TACOMA, Wash. — A Washington judge hit Canadian mining outfit Asbestos Corp. Ltd. (ACL) with a $16.2 million verdict after entering default judgment against the company for failure to comply with discovery rulings.
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March 19, 2025
5th Circuit Affirms Tolling Of Asbestos FELA Suit Can’t Be Indefinite
NEW ORLEANS — Any implied agreement indefinitely tolling the statute of limitations in a Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA) asbestos case runs afoul of Texas law precluding such arrangements, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in affirming summary judgment for a railroad.
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March 19, 2025
J&J: Jury’s Defense Verdict, Punitive Damages Award Doesn’t Require New Trial
PITTSBURGH — Evidentiary and expert rulings in an asbestos case largely favored the plaintiff, and a jury likely awarded her punitive damages despite finding no evidence of causation based on closing arguments and a verdict form that encouraged the jury to skip the page with instructions on those damages, Johnson & Johnson entities tells a Pittsburgh judge in opposing a new trial motion.
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March 19, 2025
Canadian Asbestos Miner Seeks Judge’s Removal After $1,000 Discovery Sanction
LOS ANGELES — Asbestos Corp. Ltd. (ACL) filed a brief in a California court arguing that its peremptory challenge to the judge overseeing an asbestos case was timely after informing the court that it could not receive a fair hearing from the judge, who previously found that it “willfully and intentionally” failed to comply with court-ordered discovery.
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March 18, 2025
BNSF: Common Carrier, Federal Law Preclude Liability, $8M Asbestos Verdict
SAN FRANCISCO — Railways carrying material under federal law are common carriers and can’t be held strictly liable, and federal law preempts state laws attempting to do so, BNSF Railway Co. tells a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel in a March 17 brief, hoping to erase an $8 million asbestos verdict stemming from its handling of asbestos-tainted vermiculite at the Libby, Mont., mine.
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March 18, 2025
Bankrupt Company Says Asbestos Suit Against Receiver Belongs In State Court
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A bankrupt company tells a federal judge in South Carolina that a February ruling supports limiting precedent on federal jurisdiction to bankruptcy cases and instances where a removing entity was an actual party to the case, while urging the court to reject insurers’ attempts to remove an asbestos action against a receiver for Canadian-based Asbestos Corp. Ltd. (ACL).
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March 18, 2025
Company Urges Review Of Genetic Testing Ruling In California Asbestos Case
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A trial court evaluated a motion to compel simple and potentially conclusive genetic testing in a mesothelioma case under the standard for admissibility when it should have done so under the standard for relevance, a company told the California Supreme Court in a petition for review.
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March 18, 2025
Panel Says Underlying Asbestos Suits Are Covered Under Premises-Operations Policies
FORT WORTH, Texas — The Second District Texas Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s ruling that an insurer has a continued duty to defend its insured against underlying asbestos bodily injury lawsuits because the trial court properly found that the underlying allegations fall within the policies’ premises-operations coverage and the insurer failed to show that its policies have been exhausted.
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March 17, 2025
Plaintiffs Say Recent Ruling Supports Summary Judgment On Government Immunity
NEW ORLEANS — Yet another jurist has joined the chorus of judges rejecting a shipyard’s government immunity defense to claims that it failed to warn workers about the dangers of asbestos at its facility, a woman’s family told a federal court in Louisiana on March 14 in a supplemental brief on the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment.
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March 17, 2025
Asbestos Company Can’t Get Costs, Access To Expert In Voluntarily Dismissed Case
NEW YORK — A mesothelioma sufferer cannot be required to continue litigating a five-year-old asbestos case against the lone remaining defendant in his case so that the company can depose an expert and avoid litigation costs in other cases against it, a federal judge in New York said in adopting a magistrate judge’s ruling and granting the plaintiff’s motion to dismiss the case with prejudice.
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March 12, 2025
Asbestos Case Disclaimer Defeats Removal, 9th Circuit Affirms
PHOENIX — A district court did not err in declining to exercise maritime jurisdiction and remanding a case where a man disclaimed any liability related to asbestos exposures associated with the U.S. Navy, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in an unpublished memorandum opinion.
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March 12, 2025
Judge: Shipyard Not Entitled To Government Contractor Immunity In Warning Case
NEW ORLEANS — Neither the fact that the government required the use of asbestos nor compliance with general and minimum safety requirements entitles a shipyard to government contractor immunity from claims that it failed to warn workers about the dangers of asbestos at the facility, a federal judge in Louisiana said in granting a plaintiff summary judgment on the contractor defense.
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March 12, 2025
9th Circuit: Navy Boilers Not Commercial Products, No Strict Liability
PASADENA, Calif. — Boilers supplied for use on U.S. Navy vessels were custom built to government specifications, and because they were not commercially available, a judge properly declined to instruct a jury on strict liability, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said March 11 in affirming a judge’s ruling in an asbestos case that ended in a defense verdict.
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March 11, 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.
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March 11, 2025
Montana Senate Considers Relocating Asbestos Claims To New Court
HELENA, Mont. — Legislation in the Montana Senate seeking creation of a three-judge government claims court that would have jurisdiction over constitutional and asbestos-related claims was passed on a second read after moving out of the Judiciary Committee.
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March 11, 2025
Vermont High Court Affirms Quash Of Insurer Subpoena In J&J Talc Coverage Suit
MONTPELIER, Vt. — An insurer trying to escape liability for a verdict against Johnson & Johnson (J&J) in an asbestos-talc bodily injury mass tort litigation improperly served an out-of-state subpoena on a regulatory department for information filed by the company’s captive insurance company without first establishing that the information it sought was not available from other nonconfidential sources, the Vermont Supreme Court found, upholding a trial court's decision to quash the subpoena.
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March 11, 2025
Pizza Oven Parts Supplier Must Face Asbestos Suit, New York Court Says
NEW YORK — A party not named in an Illinois asbestos suit and not in privity with any of those defendants may still be sued in New York, a state appellate court said, concluding that the fact that the defendant may have been a supplier to a settled party and the possible presence of an indemnity agreement did not change the conclusion.
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March 10, 2025
California Court Won’t Review Ruling Limiting Genetic Testing In Asbestos Case
OAKLAND, Calif. — A California appellate court on March 7 denied a writ petition challenging a trial court’s ruling limiting genetic testing, which the petitioner claimed “undermines the search for truth” by improperly restricting discovery to only potentially admissible evidence and by eliminating the possibility that the testing could produce dispositive evidence of causation, according to a docket entry.
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March 10, 2025
Talc Law Firm’s Action Belongs With First-Filed Case, Federal Judge Says
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge in Mississippi said the advantages inherent in avoiding overlapping discovery and different rulings in different courts warranted transferring one law firm’s suit targeting a second law firm over asbestos-talc negotiations with Johnson & Johnson.
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March 10, 2025
Company Defends Claim As Parties Set Discovery Rules In Asbestos Expert Dispute
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — A Johnson & Johnson subsidiary opposed reconsideration of a ruling allowing a single claim to proceed against three experts it accuses in a lawsuit of disparagement and false advertising based on their article linking mesothelioma to exposure to talc, while the parties asked a federal judge in Virginia to permit bifurcated discovery, with the first phase involving fact questions and the second involving damages, which the subsidiary also opposed.
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March 10, 2025
Reinsurance Dispute Closed After Parties Agree To Dismiss All Claims
OMAHA, Neb. — A federal judge in Nebraska dismissed with prejudice a suit involving a reinsurance contract and a settlement with the state of Montana over alleged asbestos exposures, following a joint stipulation between the parties to dismiss all claims.