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August 21, 2025
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.
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August 20, 2025
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.
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August 20, 2025
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.
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August 18, 2025
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.
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August 15, 2025
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.
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August 15, 2025
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.
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August 13, 2025
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.
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August 12, 2025
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.
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August 12, 2025
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.
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August 12, 2025
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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August 11, 2025
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.
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August 11, 2025
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.
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August 07, 2025
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.
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August 06, 2025
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.
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August 07, 2025
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.
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August 06, 2025
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.
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August 06, 2025
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.
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August 04, 2025
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.
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August 04, 2025
MILWAUKEE — The Wisconsin Supreme Court set Sept. 8 for oral arguments in a case involving a brewery’s liability for asbestos injuries suffered by an employee of a contractor and whether punitive damages should be based on the total award or only on the share assigned to the party at trial.
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August 01, 2025
PHILADELPHIA — A judge properly certified an asbestos talc securities class after finding that each of six disclosures about the safety of talc or the presence of asbestos in Johnson & Johnson talc led to a drop in the company’s stock price, a divided Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said in a divided nonprecedential opinion affirming class certification.
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August 01, 2025
RALEIGH, N.C. — A federal judge in North Carolina entered judgment in favor of a contractor in its dispute over indemnity for asbestos claims stemming from the building of a pulp mill after the court granted summary judgment in a sealed ruling.
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July 30, 2025
SAN FRANCISCO — Since a man’s alleged asbestos exposures occurred at least partly on vessels on navigable waters, his claims fall under maritime law, which does not recognize punitive damages, but he can amend his complaint to allege land-based exposures that would give rise to the damages, a federal judge in California said in granting a motion to dismiss.
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July 30, 2025
BOSTON — A Massachusetts jury on July 29 found Johnson & Johnson negligent and that it breached the implied warranty of merchantability and awarded a couple $42,608,300 for the husband’s mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos in Johnson & Johnson consumer talc in what sources said is believed to be the largest asbestos verdict in state history.
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July 30, 2025
BUFFALO, N.Y. — A divided New York appellate court said expert testimony that chrysotile asbestos causes mesothelioma is sufficient and affirmed a $3.3 million friction products asbestos verdict in the face of specific and general causation challenges by Ford Motor Co.
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July 29, 2025
WILMINGTON, Del. — A Delaware jury awarded $9 million to a farmer’s estate and family in what is believed to be the first asbestos-related shotgun shell mesothelioma case to go to a verdict.