Asbestos Product Liability Lawsuits

Dangerous products don't have to be banned to be sold safely. Gasoline can explode. Rat poison can kill. Yet both are sold every day because consumers know what they're buying and can protect themselves accordingly.

That's the core idea behind product liability law: if a company sells something dangerous without warning of the hazards, they can be held accountable for the harm their product causes.

Asbestos was different. It was odorless, invisible, and deadly. And for decades, the companies that made asbestos products knew it could kill the workers who handled it. They sold it anyway, without adequate warnings.

Product liability law gave those workers and their families a way to fight back. The lawsuits that followed compensated victims, but they also did much more. They exposed corporate cover-ups, drove asbestos out of everyday use, and created the legal framework that still protects families today.

That framework exists because one man decided to sue. His name was Clarence Borel, and his case changed everything.

Read Clarence Borel's story.

Two Types of Product Defects

In product liability law, a product is "defective" if it's unreasonably dangerous to consumers. For asbestos cases, that defect typically falls into one of two categories. (A third theory, design defect, argues that a product was too dangerous as designed, for example because a safer material could have been used instead of asbestos. It's often brought alongside these two.)

Failure to Warn

This is the most common theory in asbestos lawsuits, especially for industrial products like insulation, pipe wrap, gaskets, and brake pads.

The law allows companies to sell dangerous products, but only if they clearly warn users about the risks of those products. You see this principle every day: household cleaners contain toxic chemicals, but they come with warning labels explaining the danger. That's the tradeoff. You can sell something hazardous as long as people know what they're getting into and can protect themselves.

Asbestos manufacturers didn't hold up their end of that bargain. They knew their products could cause fatal diseases. They sold them anyway, for decades without warnings and later with weak ones, leaving workers to breathe asbestos dust for years without any idea it was killing them.

When a company knows—or should know—that its product can cause cancer, and fails to provide clear warnings, the product is considered defective even if it was manufactured exactly as designed. And when companies actively concealed the risks or lied about the dangers, as many asbestos manufacturers did, they can face punitive damages on top of compensating victims.

Manufacturing Defect

This theory applies when asbestos ends up in a product that was never supposed to contain it. The product doesn't match its intended design or specifications, making it automatically defective.

The clearest example is talcum powder. Products like Johnson & Johnson's Shower to Shower were marketed as safe for daily use. But talc and asbestos occur together in nature, and many talc-based powders were contaminated with asbestos fibers. Because these products were never supposed to contain asbestos (and were sold as safe) they're defective under a manufacturing defect theory.

Learn more about talcum powder litigation.

The Difference Between Failure to Warn and Manufacturing Defects

Let's take a look at two different products made with asbestos: Kaylo pipe insulation and Shower to Shower baby powder. Asbestos insulation was supposed to have asbestos in it. But Shower to Shower baby powder was not. Asbestos ended up in the baby powder as a result of sloppy manufacturing.

Owens-Illinois developed Kaylo in the 1940s as a calcium silicate insulation reinforced with asbestos fibers. In March 1943, the year Kaylo was introduced, Owens-Illinois asked the Saranac Laboratory to study it. Before running a single test, Saranac's director wrote back that the mix of quartz and asbestos in the product had "all the ingredients for a first class hazard." By 1948, Saranac's animal studies had confirmed that Kaylo dust caused asbestosis.

But they sold it anyway. For decades. Owens-Illinois, and then Owens-Corning, which bought the product line in 1958, marketed Kaylo as "non-toxic."

Read the 1943 "first class hazard" letter. Learn more about Kaylo.

The table below illustrates how two defect theories work in practice, comparing Kaylo (failure to warn) with a consumer talc product (manufacturing defect).

Who Can Be Held Liable in an Asbestos Product Liability Lawsuit?

Asbestos exposure rarely came from a single source. Workers encountered asbestos products from multiple manufacturers, at multiple job sites, over years or decades. The law recognizes this reality. You can hold all responsible parties accountable, not just the company that made one particular product.

Manufacturers. The companies that made asbestos insulation, gaskets, pipe wrap, cement, brake pads, and thousands of other products. They knew the risks and sold their products without adequate warnings. They're the primary targets in most asbestos litigation. (One exception: for railroad workers, federal law blocks most product claims against the makers of locomotive parts, such as brake shoes. Learn about railroad workers' claims under FELA.)

Distributors and Suppliers. The middlemen who moved asbestos products from factories to job sites. If they knew or should have known the products were hazardous and failed to pass along warnings, they share liability.

Premises Owners. Refineries, chemical plants, shipyards, and power plants often knew asbestos was present on their property and did nothing to warn or protect the workers who came through their gates. This is especially important for contractors and temporary workers who didn't control the work environment. Learn more about premises liability claims.

Contractors. Companies that installed, removed, or disturbed asbestos materials, often during shutdowns, renovations, or routine maintenance. If their work practices exposed other workers to asbestos dust, they can be held responsible.

Successor Companies. When companies merge, rebrand, or sell their product lines, legal liability often follows. The original manufacturer may be gone, but the company that acquired their business (and continued profiting from it) can inherit responsibility for the harm caused.

Bankruptcy Trusts. Many of the worst offenders eventually filed for bankruptcy. As part of that process, they were required to establish trust funds to compensate victims. The company may no longer exist, but the trust still pays claims. Learn more about asbestos trust claims.

Every liable party represents another potential source of compensation. Our experienced legal team will investigate your exposure history, identify all responsible parties, and pursue every claim available to you.

What Compensation Is Available in an Asbestos Product Liability Lawsuit?

Asbestos-related illnesses do more than damage your health. They drain savings, end careers, and reshape families. Product liability lawsuits allow your family to recover compensation for all of that.

Clarence Borel's story shows what each type of damages is meant to cover.

Economic Damages cover actual financial losses such as medical bills, lost wages, and related expenses. By the time Borel filed his lawsuit, he'd already spent thousands of dollars on doctors and hospitals. Economic damages are intended to reimburse you for any out of pocket expenses, including those medical expenses. Economic damages also allow you to recover for earnings you would have had in the future if not for your illness. Clarence Borel was earning $5.45 an hour as a union insulator in 1969 when his illness forced him to stop working. At 57, he lost years of earning capacity he would never recover.

Noneconomic Damages address the human cost of illnesses like pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life. In his final months, Borel couldn't sit up for more than ten minutes without the room spinning. He weighed less than a hundred pounds. He survived on cream of wheat, jello, and beef bouillon because he couldn't swallow solid food. His wife Thelma gave him morphine shots for the pain. The man who once hoped to field a baseball team with children and grandchildren could no longer walk across his living room, or even sit upright.

Loss of Consortium compensates a spouse for the loss of companionship, affection, and support that the illness takes away. Thelma Borel watched her husband of 36 years waste away on their living room couch. She served coffee to the defense attorneys who came to depose him while he was dying on that very couch. The disease took Clarence from her and it transformed their final months together into a painful ordeal. (Texas didn't recognize a spouse's loss of consortium claim until 1978, years after Borel's case, so Thelma's loss was addressed through the wrongful death claim after he died.)

Punitive Damages may be awarded when a company's conduct was outrageous, such as when some companies actively concealed dangers to protect their profits. The asbestos manufacturers Borel sued had known for decades that their products were dangerous. Some had commissioned studies proving it. They sold their products anyway, choosing profit over human life. Punitive damages exist to punish that kind of deliberate misconduct and deter others from doing the same. Whether they're available, and how much they can be, depends on the state.

Wrongful Death Damages allow surviving family members to recover compensation when asbestos exposure kills someone they love. Clarence Borel died on June 3, 1970, which was before his case ever reached trial. Thelma was substituted as plaintiff, and the product liability lawsuit continued with wrongful death and survival claims. The wrongful death claim addressed what Thelma lost: her husband's income, his companionship, and the life they should have had together. Learn more about wrongful death claims.

Survival Damages compensate the victim's estate for what the victim endured between diagnosis and death. Borel's final year was defined by suffering: a lung removed, a body failing, a grueling deposition conducted in one-hour increments over three days in April and May 1970 because that was all he could endure. Survival claims ensure that the pain he felt while he was alive is part of the recovery.

One important note: product liability laws vary significantly from state to state. Each state sets its own rules for what claims are available, how damages are calculated, and how long you have to file. Statutes of limitations for asbestos cases can range from one to six years depending on the state, the type of disease, and when you were diagnosed. Some states cap certain types of damages; others don't. Some recognize loss of consortium claims; others limit them.

This is why working with attorneys who understand asbestos litigation across multiple jurisdictions matters. We handle cases nationwide and know how to navigate these differences to maximize your recovery.

See how the laws work in your state.

Who Can File an Asbestos Product Liability Lawsuit?

If you or a loved one developed an asbestos-related disease, you may have the right to file a claim—even if the exposure happened decades ago.

People Who Worked Directly With Asbestos. If you worked with or around asbestos-containing products, you likely had direct exposure. This includes handling asbestos insulation, gaskets, brake pads, or cement; working near others who used asbestos products; and tearing out or installing materials that released asbestos dust. Pipefitters, insulators, shipyard workers, mechanics, electricians, and construction workers are among the occupations most commonly affected.

Learn more about high-risk industries, occupations, and products.

Secondary Exposure. You don't have to have worked with asbestos yourself. Asbestos fibers cling to clothing, shoes, and hair such that workers often carried deadly dust home to their families without knowing it. Clarence Borel's daughters remember shaking the white dust from his work clothes in the garage before putting them in the washing machine. "It was like snow," they recalled. Decades later, four of his six children developed asbestosis from that secondary exposure. They have their own claims against the same companies whose products their father carried home.

Learn more about secondary exposure claims.

How We Win Your Product Liability Case

In asbestos litigation, the central question is what the law calls causation: did asbestos exposure from a particular company's product cause or contribute to your illness? There are two types of causation, general and specific.

General Causation. General causation asks if asbestos causes a specific disease in anyone. For mesothelioma, lung cancer, and asbestosis, the answer is universally "yes." This hasn't been seriously disputed in decades. By the 1930s, the link between asbestos and asbestosis was established. By the late 1950s, the connection to lung cancer was proven. By the mid-1960s, researchers had confirmed that asbestos causes mesothelioma.

Specific Causation. Specific causation asks if asbestos caused the specific disease the injured person has. This is where the fight happens. Defense attorneys won't argue that asbestos is safe, because that's a losing position. Instead, they'll argue that their client's asbestos didn't cause your illness. Maybe it was someone else's product that you breathed in. Or maybe it was genetics and you were going to get mesothelioma anyway. Or maybe you smoked and that's why you have lung cancer. Whatever the cause of your illness, each defendant will be quite sure it wasn't their product.

And that's where we come in. We prove each defendant is responsible for your illness in several ways:

Reconstructing Your Exposure History. We investigate which facilities you worked at, what asbestos products were used there, which manufacturers supplied those products, and how workplace practices created exposure. You don't need to remember brand names. We identify the materials through work orders, union records, shipping manifests, and historical product catalogs.

Using Our Document Archives. We maintain what may be the largest private collection of asbestos-related documents in the country, with over 200,000 documented exposure sites, decades of digitized court records, shipping records showing which products went to which facilities, and internal corporate communications where manufacturers acknowledged the dangers of their products. In many cases, we already have evidence proving that specific asbestos products were present at a facility during the exact years our client worked there.

Medical Experts. We work with board-certified physicians and industrial hygienists who specialize in asbestos disease. They review your exposure history, analyze your pathology, and provide expert opinions connecting your illness to specific exposures.

Defeating Defense Arguments. Smoking doesn't cause mesothelioma, but asbestos does. For lung cancer, smoking and asbestos create a synergistic effect that actually strengthens causation arguments, though in some states a jury can still reduce damages for a plaintiff's smoking. Genetic predisposition isn't causation; it's vulnerability. Our experts know how to address these defenses and keep the focus where it belongs: on the companies whose products made you sick.

The companies that poisoned workers counted on the passage of time to protect them from accountability.

They counted wrong.

Learn more about why families choose us.

Lawsuits and Trust Claims Work Together

Many of the companies that manufactured asbestos products have filed for bankruptcy. Johns-Manville, Pittsburgh Corning, Owens Corning, and Fibreboard are among the more than 60 companies that have established asbestos bankruptcy trusts. If a manufacturer has an asbestos trust, you file a trust claim instead of a lawsuit. But bankruptcy trusts are only part of the picture.

Other defendants such as premises owners, successor companies, equipment manufacturers, and solvent product makers can still be sued. Many families can pursue both trust claims and lawsuit recoveries at the same time.

This is where strategy matters. Trust claims often pay faster. Lawsuits can yield larger recoveries. The timing and structure of each affects the other. We coordinate every claim to maximize total compensation while protecting your recovery from unnecessary offsets or delays.

On our Clarence Borel page, we walk through exactly what would happen if someone with his exposure history contacted us today. Same products, same job sites, same decades of work as a Gulf Coast insulator, but with all the legal tools now available. We show how we'd file trust claims against the bankrupt manufacturers he originally sued, pursue premises liability claims against the refineries where he worked, investigate product claims against solvent defendants, and coordinate everything to maximize his family's recovery.

Read how we'd handle his full case today.

Asbestos Product Liability FAQ

What if the company that made the product went bankrupt?

Then you usually file a trust claim instead of a lawsuit. Many of the largest asbestos makers set up trusts to pay people harmed by their products, and those claims are a paper process with no court. If other makers of products you handled are still in business, you can pursue both paths at once.

I used the product but don't remember the brand. Can I still sue?

Yes. You don't need to name brands from memory. We identify the materials through work orders, union records, shipping manifests, historical product catalogs, and our own archives, and in many cases we can already show which products were present at a facility during the years you worked there.

Can I bring a claim over talcum powder, not just industrial products?

Yes. Talc and asbestos occur together in nature, and talc products contaminated with asbestos have been linked to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. Because those products were never supposed to contain asbestos, they can be defective under a different theory than industrial products.

What if I was exposed to several different companies' products?

That's the norm, not a complication. In general, each company whose product was a substantial factor in causing your disease can be held responsible; you don't have to pick one and let the others off. States differ on what that takes: some, including Texas, require evidence of how much exposure came from each defendant's product. More products usually means more potential defendants and more sources of recovery.

Does it matter that I smoked?

For mesothelioma, no, smoking doesn't cause it. For lung cancer, smoking and asbestos multiply each other's effect, and that synergy can strengthen the causation argument rather than defeat it. In some states, a jury can reduce damages to reflect a plaintiff's smoking. It's a fact we address head-on, not one that ends your claim.

How long do I have to sue a manufacturer?

It depends on your state and on when you were diagnosed or reasonably connected your illness to asbestos. Some windows are short. The safest step is to call promptly after diagnosis so a deadline doesn't quietly pass.