Mealey's Asbestos
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June 06, 2025
Judge Extends Discovery, Says Jurisdiction Prevents Employment Record Production
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California on June 5 extended the discovery deadline for employment documents held by a third party in an asbestos action but said jurisdictional issues likely prevent him from ordering their production as requested in an ex parte motion and envisioned by a magistrate judge’s order.
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June 06, 2025
J&J Entities Seek To Bar Beasley Allen Attorneys From N.J. Talc Litigation
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Citing alleged conduct in a recent bankruptcy case seeking to resolve asbestos-talc litigation and improper ties to a former Johnson & Johnson attorney, the company and its entities asked a New Jersey judge to deny pro hac viceadmission to two Beasley Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles PC attorneys in a personal injury suit.
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June 06, 2025
New York Jury Awards $117M For World Trade Center Asbestos Exposures
NEW YORK — A justice adopted a stipulated post-trial schedule that will see post-trial briefing wrap up in September after a New York jury awarded a couple $117 million for a man’s exposure to asbestos during construction of the World Trade Center, sources told Mealey’s Publications.
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June 05, 2025
Court: Couples’ Vague Discovery Responses Didn’t Save Asbestos Case
LOS ANGELES — “Factually vague” discovery responses identifying broad categories of products but not the specific asbestos-containing products a man encountered fall short of the standard required to overcome summary judgment, a California appellate court said in an unpublished opinion affirming on June 4.
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June 03, 2025
Insurer Alleges Reinsurer Breached Policy Agreement In Asbestos Settlement Row
NEW YORK — An insurer seeks nearly $2 million in damages in a New York federal court, alleging in ts complaint that its reinsurer breached their policy agreement by refusing to pay its share of a settlement tied to asbestos bodily injury claims brought by a corporation covered under the insurer’s excess liability policies.
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June 02, 2025
Asbestos Plaintiffs Seek Order On Employment Records Held By Third Party
LOS ANGELES — Despite a magistrate judge’s order, a release by the documents’ owner and repeated efforts, a third party still refuses to produce employment records relevant to an asbestos action, a family tells a federal judge in California in an ex parte application for an order.
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May 29, 2025
J&J Entity, Experts Debate Need For Study Identities, Asbestos-Talc Causation
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. — Discovery into whether there is asbestos in talc and if it causes mesothelioma is irrelevant to a trade libel case accusing experts of falsely identifying individuals with only talc-based exposures, a Johnson & Johnson entity argues in an opposition to a motion to compel filed in a federal court in Virginia. Meanwhile, the experts urged the court to block the company’s attempts at a “freewheeling investigation” into the study participants, saying coded production of only facts about the individuals sufficiently protects the participants’ privacy.
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May 29, 2025
Asbestos Briefing Focuses On Boundaries Of Government Contractor Defense
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge in California heard arguments on an omnibus motion for summary judgment on government contractor immunity and other defenses asserted by five defendants in a maritime asbestos case and said she would take the matter under submission.
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May 29, 2025
Asbestos Release Bars Later Bladder Cancer Claim, Maryland Court Says
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — A release covering asbestos and other toxin-related claims and specifically listing diseases including cancer bars a subsequent lawsuit over a rail worker’s bladder cancer, the Maryland Appellate Court said in an unreported opinion affirming summary judgment for two defendants.
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May 28, 2025
Asbestos Defendant Conceded Mesothelioma Diagnosis, Couple Says
OAKLAND, Calif. — A defendant’s counsel’s comments about genetics and causation of mesothelioma and kidney cancer during trial constitute a judicial admission that a man suffers from the disease and should be treated by the court as such, a couple prosecuting an asbestos case tells a judge in California in a May 27 trial brief.
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May 27, 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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May 27, 2025
Defendants Want 24 Fact Witnesses Stricken From Asbestos Case As Untimely
LOS ANGELES — Plaintiffs disclosed two dozen fact witnesses just days before the close of fact discovery, including at least two identified through advertisements, in violation of federal rules and a court order, defendants told a federal judge in California in asking that the court strike the witnesses.
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May 27, 2025
COMMENTARY: A Fork In The Road To Justice In Pennsylvania
By Tracey McDevitt Hagan and Molly Reilly
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May 23, 2025
Citing Differences, Judge Won’t Consolidate Siblings’ California Asbestos Cases
ALAMEDA, Calif. — A California judge declined to consolidate two siblings’ asbestos cases, concluding in a tentative order that trying a take-home asbestos case with the much longer and direct exposures in the second case posed too much of a risk of prejudice.
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May 23, 2025
South Carolina Top Court Affirms Discovery Sanction, Receiver For Atlas Turner
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A wealth of evidence supports a trial court’s decision striking defendant Atlas Turner Inc.’s answer as a sanction for discovery abuses in an asbestos case, and the company’s “moral fraud” warranted appointing a receiver over its insurance assets, the South Carolina Supreme Court said in narrowing but otherwise affirming the rulings.
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May 23, 2025
Louisiana Federal Judge Stays Claims Against Insurer In Asbestos Bodily Injury Suit
NEW ORLEANS — Claims alleged against an insurer in an asbestos bodily injury suit filed in Louisiana federal court will be stayed until a Massachusetts federal court resolves the issue of whether the insurer is responsible for policies issued to the executive officers of a shipyard where a decedent was exposed to asbestos because a stay of the claims will not prejudice the plaintiffs’ ability to seek coverage from the shipyard’s proper insurer, a Louisiana federal judge said in granting the insurer’s motion to stay.
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May 22, 2025
California Judge Bars Kidney Cancer Claims In Mesothelioma Trial
OAKLAND, Calif. — A jury on May 21 heard opening arguments in a mesothelioma case after a California judge issued a tentative ruling barring a couple from pursuing claims related to a man’s kidney cancer but said if an expert opines on a possible genetic role in the disease the couple may inquire about any role asbestos could play.
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May 22, 2025
Judge Says Law Firms In Talc Tort Contract Dispute Can Arbitrate Some Claims
JACKSON, Miss. — A federal judge in Alabama ordered two asbestos-talc personal injury law firms to arbitrate contract and fraudulent suppression claims in the wake of their agreement but said the court would retain jurisdiction over specific performance claims.
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May 22, 2025
Montana Legislation Relocating Asbestos Claims Fails In Fiscal Committee
HELENA, Mont. — Montana legislation seeking creation of a three-judge government claims court that would have jurisdiction over constitutional and asbestos-related claims failed to pass the Senate Committee on Finance and Claims and failed.
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May 21, 2025
J&J Affiliate’s New Evidence Not Material, Talc Study Author Says
TRENTON, N.J. — A motion filed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) spinoff Pecos River Talc LLC in New Jersey federal court seeking to revive its dismissed trade libel and fraud action against the author of a scientific study should be rejected because the company’s new evidence is not material and will not change the disposition of the case, the study author argues in an opposition brief.
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May 20, 2025
Panel Finds No Error In Lower Court’s Coverage Determinations In Asbestos Suit
COLUMBIA, S.C. — A trial court did not err in making coverage determinations based on two policies produced by a receiver who was appointed to manage asbestos bodily injury claims filed against an insured, because the insurer failed to submit any evidence to support its argument that some of the policies’ terms changed over the years and were not identical to the two policies produced by the receiver, the South Carolina Court of Appeals said.
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May 20, 2025
Parties To Libby, Mont., Fraudulent Claim Verdict Brief Attorney Fee Award
MISSOULA, Mont. — Parties to Libby, Mont., fraudulent screening diagnosis case responded to a judge’s request for briefing on a pending motion for attorney fees in the wake of what the judge termed “significant developments” since the $1.4 million judgment against the medical provider for allegedly submitting fraudulent claims under a Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) program specifically designed for the asbestos-plagued town.
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May 19, 2025
Government Contractor Immunity Win Can’t Secure Asbestos Case Remand, Judge Says
NEW ORLEANS — A ruling granting summary judgment on a shipyard’s government immunity defenses in an asbestos case does not eliminate federal jurisdiction or require remand of the case, a federal judge in Louisiana said in denying a man’s motion to remand.
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May 19, 2025
Judge Reconsiders, Finds Asbestos Letter To EPA Meets Delaware Standard
WILMINGTON, Del. — A couple’s evidence that a man worked with a company’s automotive brakes approximately half the time he was on the job, combined with a regulatory letter the company sent detailing its ongoing use of asbestos-containing brakes, meet the causal nexus standard in Delaware, a state judge said in granting reconsideration of an order awarding the company summary judgment.
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May 19, 2025
Florida Court Briefed On Jurisdiction Over J&J Entities
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A man and a trio of Johnson & Johnson entities recently resumed briefing in a case challenging whether companies created in the wake of attempts to resolve talc-related liabilities through bankruptcy can be subject to jurisdiction in Florida.