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Mealey's Asbestos

  • September 05, 2025

    Oil Companies: Direction, Causal Nexus Not Part Of Federal Officer Removal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congress expanded the federal officer removal statute in 2011 to include conduct connected to federal directives, and asbestos case law establishes that nothing in the statute imposes a causal nexus or contractual directive, oil companies whose World War II drilling activities allegedly violated Louisiana law tell the U.S. Supreme Court in a Sept. 4 brief.

  • September 05, 2025

    Talc Bankruptcy Parties Debate Having District Court Decide Presence Of Asbestos

    HOUSTON — Parties for and against a Texas federal bankruptcy judge’s ruling that a federal district court should decide whether any of the talc sold by debtor BMI Oldco Inc. contained asbestos before the talc mining company’s Chapter 11 case can proceed filed supplemental briefs in support of their positions at the invitation of the district court.

  • September 05, 2025

    Justice: Talc Manufacturer Can’t Rely On Supplier To Evade Liability

    SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A talc manufacturer and distributor cannot completely erase its liability under New York law by pointing to its supplier’s safety certifications, especially in light of expert testimony and other evidence suggesting that its products contained asbestos and the company’s awareness of the problem, a New York justice said in denying summary judgment.

  • September 05, 2025

    Woman Appeals Sanction For Unreported Asbestos-Talc Testing

    SEATTLE — Division I of the Washington Court of Appeals indicated that it would accept discretionary review of a ruling imposing $13,200 in sanctions for counsel’s testing on an undisclosed sample of talc in an asbestos case.

  • September 05, 2025

    Judge Won’t Review Remand Of Asbestos Case Against Shipbuilder

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California in a docket-only entry declined to reconsider a ruling in which he found that removal of an asbestos action was untimely and that federal officer removal was inappropriate in any case.

  • September 04, 2025

    Government Contractor, Immunity Defenses Rejected In Federal Asbestos Case

    NEW ORLEANS — While a shipyard meets the threshold for federal officer removal, it cannot rely on government contractor or derivative sovereign immunity defenses, a federal judge in Louisiana said Sept. 3 in denying remand but granting summary judgment on the two issues.

  • September 04, 2025

    North Carolina Court: Bellwether Trial Doesn’t Bar Asbestos Workers’ Comp Claims

    RALEIGH, N.C. — The results of a bellwether trial do not preclude 13 workers’ compensation claimants from attempting to prove causation in their individual asbestos actions against a tire company, a divided North Carolina Court of Appeals held Sept. 3 in reversing dismissal of the cases.

  • September 03, 2025

    John Crane Appeals Ruling Remanding Asbestos Case After Disclaimer

    PHILADELPHIA — A post-removal disclaimer of any claims arising from work on government vessels sufficiently eliminates the grounds for federal jurisdiction, and keeping the case in federal court will not result in a more efficient resolution, a federal judge in Pennsylvania said in remanding an asbestos case.  Defendant John Crane Inc. filed a notice of appeal of the ruling on Sept. 2.

  • September 03, 2025

    California Panel Publishes Sophisticated User Ruling In Asbestos Pipe Case

    LOS ANGELES — A California appellate court granted a request to publish a recent decision in which the court upheld a jury verdict finding a pipelayer qualified as a sophisticated user of asbestos-containing pipe and that the manufacturer was not negligent.

  • September 02, 2025

    Judge Allows Experts’ Testimony After ‘Every Exposure,’ Tobacco Opinion Challenges

    HONOLULU — A federal judge in Hawaii precluded two experts from testifying that every exposure or any exposure to asbestos is a substantial contributing factor in a man’s lung cancer but otherwise denied a motion to exclude the experts and admitted an expert set to testify about secondhand exposure to tobacco’s role in the disease.

  • August 29, 2025

    Asbestos Expert’s Exclusion On Timeliness Grounds Improper, California Court Says

    SAN FRANCISCO — Counsel did not invite trial court error by being unprepared to oppose an objection to the timeliness of an asbestos expert at a summary judgment hearing because the burden of demonstrating untimeliness lies with the moving party and the expert’s testimony rests on sufficient grounds for admission, a California appellate court said in an Aug. 28 unpublished opinion reversing a ruling excluding the evidence.

  • August 28, 2025

    Court: Lack Of Asbestos In Successor’s Product Defeats Product Line Liability

    SEATTLE — A successor company that never sold the asbestos-containing pumps allegedly responsible for a man’s mesothelioma cannot be held liable under Washington’s product line doctrine, a state appeals court said in reversing a default judgment.

  • August 26, 2025

    Asbestos Trusts, Defendants Brief Court’s Power To Preserve Claims Data

    WILMINGTON, Del. — Asbestos bankruptcy trusts and key defendants in litigation over trust documents filed supplemental briefs detailing whether the Delaware Chancery Court’s equitable powers enable it to order preservation of claims data.

  • August 26, 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 26, 2025

    J&J Fails In Bid To Exclude Beasley Allen Attorneys From N.J. Talc Litigation

    ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — A New Jersey judge admitted two attorneys pro hac vice over the objections of Johnson & Johnson entities that claimed that the duo acted inappropriately in a former bankruptcy.

  • 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.