Elorreaga v. Viacomcbs Inc. (2024)

Our plain-English summary of Elorreaga v. Viacomcbs Inc. (U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, October 3, 2024).

Roberto Elorreaga served in the Navy in the 1950s and 1960s, aboard the USS Rupertus as a machinist mate apprentice and the USS Cowell as a fireman's apprentice and electrician's mate. He sued several companies, including ViacomCBS, Air & Liquid Systems and Warren Pumps, claiming they made or supplied the Navy with asbestos-containing equipment that caused his malignant pleural mesothelioma. After he died in October 2021, his wife and sons continued the case. The district court ruled for the plaintiffs on the companies' government contractor defense to the federal maritime claims and denied the companies' own summary judgment motions. The Ninth Circuit reviewed that order on an interlocutory appeal. It held that the district court relied on Boyle v. United Technologies, a preemption case that does not apply to maritime claims. The companies may instead invoke Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Construction Co., which the court said applies to federal maritime claims. The court reversed both rulings and sent the case back for the district court to decide whether the defense applies. The disposition was unpublished.

We wrote this summary from the court's opinion with the help of AI. It is not the court's wording, and it is not legal advice. The full opinion is below.

The decision

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
• Decided: October 3, 2024
• Docket: No. 23-16041
• Stage: Appeal from summary judgment
• Unpublished opinion. Many courts limit citing unpublished opinions as precedent.
• State: California

Outcome. The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's partial summary judgment for the Elorreaga plaintiffs and its denial of summary judgment to ViacomCBS, Air & Liquid Systems and Warren Pumps, and remanded for the district court to consider the Yearsley government contractor defense.

What the court held. Boyle v. United Technologies is a preemption case and does not supply the government contractor standard for federal maritime claims. Contractors may instead assert the Yearsley government contractor defense against such claims, so the district court had to consider it.

Issues decided: Government Contractor Defense and Removal, Maritime Law and Navy Ships, Federal Preemption.

The people and their exposure

• Roberto Elorreaga: pleural mesothelioma; died

The defendants

• ViacomCBS Inc. (manufacturer)
• Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (manufacturer)
• Warren Pumps, LLC (manufacturer)

Decisions this opinion cites

Earlier decisions in our library that the court cited:

• Elorreaga v. Rockwell Automation, Inc. (U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, 2023). The federal district court denied summary judgment motions by General Electric, ViacomCBS, Air & Liquid Systems and Warren Pumps, and granted the Elorreaga family's motion for partial summary judgment that the government contractor defense does not apply.

The court's opinion

The text below is Google Scholar's copy of the court's opinion, a public record. Numbers in brackets, such as [*921], mark where each page of the printed reporter begins.

ROBERTO ELORREAGA; ROSEMARY ELORREAGA, Plaintiffs-Appellees,

v.

VIACOMCBS INC., Defendant-Appellant,

AIR & LIQUID SYSTEMS CORPORATION; WARREN PUMPS, LLC, Intervenors.

No. 23-16041.

Argued and Submitted September 11, 2024 San Francisco, California.

Filed October 3, 2024.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California; D.C. No. 4:21-cv-05696-HSG, Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr, District Judge, Presiding.

Before: BYBEE and MENDOZA, Circuit Judges, and M. FITZGERALD,[**] District Judge.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION

MEMORANDUM[*]

Roberto Elorreaga served in the United States Navy aboard the USS Rupertus during the 1950s and 1960s as a machinist mate apprentice and the USS Cowell during the 1960s as a fireman's apprentice and an electrician's mate. Elorreaga sued several parties, including Defendant-Appellant ViacomCBS and Intervenors Air & Liquid Systems and Warren Pumps, for allegedly manufacturing or supplying the Navy with asbestos-containing equipment that caused him to develop malignant pleural mesothelioma. After Elorreaga passed away in October 2021, his wife and sons continued to pursue this case. The district court granted partial summary judgment to Plaintiff-Appellees, finding that Defendant-Appellant and Intervenors were not entitled to a government contractor defense against Plaintiff-Appellees' federal maritime claims. In the same order, the district court denied Defendant-Appellant's and Intervenors' motions for summary judgment on the same issue. However, the district court certified its order for interlocutory review by this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b). The question before us is whether a government contractor defense applies to Plaintiff-Appellees' federal maritime claims. We assume familiarity with the facts and applicable law and "review de novo a district court's grant or denial of summary judgment." Nw. Env't Advocs. v. Nat'l Marine Fisheries Serv., 460 F.3d 1125, 1132 (9th Cir. 2006). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), and we reverse and remand.

The district court centered its analysis of the government contractor defense on Boyle v. United Techs., 487 U.S. 500 (1988), which describes the proper "scope of displacement" of state-law "[l]iability for design defects in military equipment" by federal law. 487 U.S. at 512. But Boyle is a preemption case, and it is inapplicable to Plaintiff-Appellees' federal maritime claims. See id. at 504 (noting that "a few areas, involving `uniquely federal interests' . . . are so committed by the Constitution and laws of the United States to federal control that state law is pre-empted and replaced, where necessary. . . [by] so-called `federal common law.'") (internal quotations omitted). Boyle does not provide the proper standard for government contractor immunity in this case.

However, Defendant-Appellant and Intervenors may assert a government contractor defense under Yearsley v. W.A. Ross Const. Co., 309 U.S. 18 (1940).[1] Yearsley held that, if the "authority to carry out [a] project was validly conferred, that is, if what was done was within the constitutional power of Congress, there is no liability on the part of the contractor for executing its will." Id. at 20-21. The Supreme Court later confirmed that Yearsley may provide a federal government contractor with immunity against a federal law claim. See Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. 153, 167 n.7 (2016). And we have recognized that Yearsley immunity applies to federal maritime claims. See McKay v. Rockwell Intern. Corp., 704 F.2d 444, 447 n.1, 448 (9th Cir. 1983) (noting that the "government contractor defense" was "first articulated by the Supreme Court in Yearsley," and applied in a case where "the relevant law is the same under general maritime law as under the Death on the High Seas Act"); see also Koohi v. United States, 976 F.2d 1328, 1336-37 (9th Cir. 1992) (finding that the

government contractor defense precluded certain Public Vessels Act claims brought against weapons manufacturers). Consequently, the district court erred by failing to consider how Yearsley applied to Plaintiff-Appellees' claims. We reverse the district court's grant of partial summary judgment to Plaintiff-Appellees, and we reverse its denial of summary judgment to Defendant-Appellant and Intervenors. We remand for the district court to consider whether the government contractor defense applies in this case.

REVERSED AND REMANDED.

[**] The Honorable Michael W. Fitzgerald, United States District Judge for the Central District of California, sitting by designation. [*] This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. [1] The district court found that "Defendants [did] not raise a Yearsley defense in this case[.]" Elorreaga v. Rockwell Automation, Inc., 666 F. Supp. 3d 1032, 1038 n.1 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 31, 2023). But Defendant-Appellant cited to Yearsley in both its affirmative motion for summary judgment and in its opposition to Plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment. And the district court's certified order granting Plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment effectively precludes Defendants from asserting any government contractor defense, including one based on Yearsley. See id. at 1046 ("[T]he Court. . . GRANTS Plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment as to the government contractor defense.").

Sources

• The opinion on Google Scholar
• California asbestos laws
• California asbestos exposure sites