Asbestos Case Law by Issue

The legal questions courts decided in each case, from statutes of limitations to punitive damages.

• Asbestos Bankruptcies: 249 cases

  Disputes arising when an asbestos defendant goes into bankruptcy, from the automatic stay on lawsuits to the trusts and injunctions that channel claims to them.

• Asbestos Trust Claims in Court: 123 cases

  How claims against asbestos bankruptcy trusts affect lawsuits against companies that are still in business, including disclosure rules, credits, and fault allocated to bankrupt companies.

• Causation: 1,200 cases

  Whether asbestos, and a particular defendant's asbestos, caused the person's disease. Courts differ on how much exposure must be shown and what experts may say about it.

• Choice of Law: 374 cases

  Which state's law applies when a person was exposed in one state, lives in another, and sued in a third.

• Compensatory Damages: 350 cases

  How much the injured person or family may recover for medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering, and other losses, and when a court may change a verdict.

• Design Defect: 279 cases

  A claim that the product itself was unreasonably dangerous as designed, for example because it contained asbestos when safer materials were available.

• Employer and Contractor Liability, and Workers' Compensation: 449 cases

  Whether a worker can sue their own employer or a general contractor, or is limited to workers' compensation, and how compensation affects suits against other companies.

• Expert Testimony: 785 cases

  Whether a doctor, scientist or industrial hygienist may testify, and whether their opinions are reliable enough for a jury to hear.

• FELA Railroad Claims: 66 cases

  Claims by railroad workers against their employers under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, which has its own rules on negligence, causation and damages.

• Failure to Warn: 599 cases

  Whether a company had a duty to warn about asbestos hazards, whether its warnings were adequate, and whether a warning would have made a difference.

• Fault, Apportionment and Settlement Credits: 480 cases

  How responsibility is divided among the companies found liable for someone's asbestos disease, and how settlements with some of them reduce what the others owe.

• Fear of Cancer and Medical Monitoring: 93 cases

  Claims by people exposed to asbestos who do not yet have a disabling disease, such as fear of developing cancer or the cost of medical monitoring.

• Federal Preemption: 67 cases

  Whether a federal law displaces state-law asbestos claims, as with claims about locomotive parts under the Locomotive Inspection Act.

• Government Contractor Defense and Removal: 310 cases

  Defenses for companies that made equipment to government specifications, and their right to move such cases from state to federal court.

• Insurance Coverage: 245 cases

  Disputes between companies and their insurers over who pays for asbestos claims and how losses spread across decades of insurance policies.

• Loss of Consortium: 241 cases

  A spouse's (and in some states a child's) claim for the loss of companionship, care and support caused by a family member's asbestos disease.

• Maritime Law and Navy Ships: 344 cases

  When federal maritime law applies to asbestos exposure aboard ships or in shipyards, and the special rules for seamen, longshore and shipyard workers, and Navy veterans.

• Personal Jurisdiction: 271 cases

  Whether a court in a particular state has power over an out-of-state company, which decides where an asbestos lawsuit can be filed.

• Premises Owner Liability: 231 cases

  Whether the owner of a plant, refinery or building is responsible to contractors' workers and visitors exposed to asbestos on its property.

• Product Identification: 1,060 cases

  Proof that ties the injured person's asbestos exposure to a particular defendant, usually from the person's own testimony, coworkers' memories, and records.

• Punitive Damages: 291 cases

  Whether a company can be made to pay damages meant to punish it, which usually requires proof that it acted with malice or conscious disregard of a known danger.

• Settlements and Releases: 203 cases

  Disputes over whether a settlement was reached, what and whom a release covers, and whether settling an earlier asbestos claim bars a later one.

• Sophisticated User and Intermediary Defenses: 87 cases

  Defenses arguing that a company did not have to warn a worker directly because the worker, or a knowledgeable buyer such as the employer, already knew of the danger.

• Statute of Limitations: 381 cases

  The deadline for filing a lawsuit. In asbestos cases the clock usually starts when the person learned, or should have learned, of their asbestos disease, not when the exposure happened decades earlier, but the exact trigger varies by state.

• Statute of Repose: 141 cases

  An outer limit on lawsuits that runs from a fixed event, such as the completion of a building or the first sale of a product, whether or not anyone has been injured yet.

• Successor Liability: 210 cases

  Whether a company that bought, merged with or reorganized another company is responsible for that company's asbestos products.

• Take-Home Exposure: 238 cases

  Whether a company owed a duty to family members exposed to asbestos dust that a worker brought home on clothing, in hair, or in the car.

• The Bare-Metal Defense: 218 cases

  Whether makers of pumps, valves, boilers and turbines are responsible for asbestos gaskets, packing and insulation made by other companies but used with their equipment.

• Trial Procedure and Discovery: 2,075 cases

  Rulings on how asbestos cases are run: discovery, sanctions, consolidating cases for trial, jury instructions, and new trials.

• Venue, Removal and Transfer: 496 cases

  Which court an asbestos case belongs in: the right county, state or federal court, and whether a case should be moved, sent back, or dismissed in favor of another forum.

• Wrongful Death and Survival: 760 cases

  The two kinds of claims that can follow a death from an asbestos disease: the survivors' claim for their own losses, and the person's own claim, which survives through the estate.