Causation in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on medical or specific causation: 1,200 cases, by state. Each line gives what the court held, in our words; the law differs from state to state and changes, so read the opinion and talk to a lawyer before relying on any of them.

Michigan

• Allen v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1997). Evidence of a plaintiff's exposure to other manufacturers' asbestos products is relevant to whether the defendant's product was a substantial factor in causing the injury, but its exclusion is harmless where the plaintiff's evidence independently showed substantial exposure to the defendant's product. A manufacturer who knew of asbestos harms must warn even if it did not know of the specific disease that resulted.
• Anjeski v. Keene Bldg. & Development Co. (1989). Under Michigan's Restatement (Second) § 431 proximate cause test, a plaintiff must show the defendant's product was used at the specific site in the workplace where the worker worked; showing that the product was merely aboard the ship or present at the workplace is not enough.
• Brisboy v. Fibreboard Corp. (1988). A defendant's negligence need only be a proximate cause, meaning a substantial factor, of the harm, and it is not excused because other causes also contributed. Under pure comparative negligence, the particular risk doctrine does not narrowly define a smoker's risk, so the risk of lung cancer is within the risk a smoker assumes and the jury's comparison of fault must be given effect.
• Marshall v. Celotex Corp. (1987). The court's view was that under concert of action liability the burden of proof never shifts, so a plaintiff must identify the defendant who supplied the injury-causing asbestos to show proximate cause. It treated the requirement as an open question of Michigan law and certified it.
• Marshall v. Celotex Corp. (1987). A plaintiff who cannot identify the specific product that caused the injury may still pursue a concert-of-action theory, and the court will not reject it at summary judgment. She must prove cause in fact through concerted activity and also proximate cause.
• Marshall v. Celotex Corp. (1987). Under Michigan law as predicted by the federal court, plaintiff could not shift the product-identification burden to defendants through alternative liability (not all possible defendants were joined), market share liability (inappropriate for non-fungible asbestos products and no proof of substantial market share) or enterprise liability (no joint control of risk alleged). Concert of action still requires proof of causation.

Minnesota

• Conda v. Honeywell International, Inc. (2018). Expert causation testimony was admissible and sufficient where the district court considered foundational reliability and the evidence supported the verdict. The current Minn. Stat. § 604.02, subd. 1 does not apply when the events giving rise to the claim occurred before August 1, 2003, even if the claim accrued later.
• Crepeau BY Crepeau v. Krost Insulation Co. (1983). Liability falls on the insurer covering the employer at the time of the employee's last substantial asbestos exposure. A surviving spouse's dependency benefits are based on the daily wage at the time of the injury, and a full-time employee who deliberately limited his earnings is still treated as full-time under the statute.
• Bertrand v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1982). Under the flexible approach to offensive collateral estoppel, defendants may be barred from relitigating that asbestos dust can cause asbestosis and mesothelioma. They may not be estopped on other issues based on earlier trials in which many of them did not take part, because that would violate due process.

Mississippi

• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair Inc. (2021). Under Mississippi's asbestos causation test (exposure to a particular product, regularly, over an extended time, and in proximity), minimal exposure to a defendant's products and expert opinions that do not tie the disease to that defendant's products cannot create a genuine issue of fact. Without a valid compensatory claim, punitive damages claims also fail.
• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair Inc. (2021). Under Mississippi's frequency, regularity and proximity test with product identification, a plaintiff's twenty to twenty-five countable contacts with a defendant's products and isolated later instances do not raise a genuine issue on causation; without a viable underlying claim, punitive damages fail too.
• Bedford v. American Honda Motor Co., Inc. (2020). Under the Mississippi Products Liability Act, asbestos plaintiffs must prove product identification, exposure to the defendant's product, and proximate cause through expert testimony; without evidence quantifying exposure to the defendant's product, summary judgment is proper.
• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair (2019). Under Mississippi's Lohrmann test, a plaintiff must show more than casual or minimal contact with a defendant's asbestos-containing product. Using the product about eight times in four years did not meet that standard.
• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair, Inc. (2018). Mississippi does not recognize enterprise, market-share, concert-of-action or alternative liability to excuse product identification in asbestos cases, and fraud-based claims must be pleaded with particularity under Rule 9(b). An aiding-and-abetting conspiracy claim requires allegations that the defendant knew of the conspiratorial conduct and substantially assisted it.
• Union Carbide Corporation v. Nix (2014). A manufacturer's compliance with the OSHA warning wording does not make its warning adequate as a matter of law, and expert testimony is not required where a warning's adequacy is within a layperson's understanding. A judge's comments suggesting the compensatory award was too low can taint a punitive award submitted right after.
• City of Jackson v. Sandifer (2013). For a latent disease, the two-year workers' compensation limitations period runs from when the compensable injury becomes reasonably apparent, which is a fact question for the Commission. The Commission's causation finding stands if substantial, credible medical evidence supports it, and it resolves conflicts between medical experts.
• Gorman-Rupp Company v. Hall (2005). Mississippi adopts the "frequency, regularity, and proximity" test for proving exposure to a particular defendant's asbestos product in asbestos cases. A plaintiff who offers no evidence of exposure to an asbestos-containing product attributable to the defendant cannot defeat summary judgment, and unauthenticated documents may not be considered under Rule 56(c) and M.R.E. 901.

Missouri

• Callanan v. Chesterton (Eastern District, 5th Division, 2020). In an asbestos case against a product manufacturer, exposure to the defendant's asbestos-containing product can be shown by circumstantial evidence. Where the record supports an inference of exposure and of substantial-factor causation, summary judgment is improper.
• Hayden v. Cut-Zaven, Ltd. (Eastern District, 4th Division, 2020). A Commission finding that rejects a claimant's causation expert for lacking epidemiological studies misapplies Missouri law, which requires only medical evidence showing a probability that working conditions caused the disease. For occupational disease claims, the date of injury is when it becomes reasonably discoverable and apparent that an injury related to the exposure has been sustained.
• Ingham v. Johnson & Johnson (Eastern District, 2nd Division, 2020). Specific personal jurisdiction must be shown separately for each non-resident plaintiff's claim, and a parent corporation's jurisdictional contacts can be attributed to it from a subsidiary only through proven agency or alter ego. Expert testimony was admissible under section 490.065, and the evidence supported submitting causation and punitive damages to the jury.
• MacCormack v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2017). Under Massachusetts law, an unopposed summary judgment in an earlier suit on exposure and causation is a final judgment with preclusive effect, even though the plaintiff's disease later developed into mesothelioma.
• MacCormack v. the Adel Wiggins Group (2017). Under Massachusetts law, a prior state-court summary judgment on causation, where the party had a full opportunity to litigate, precludes relitigating the same claims against the same defendant. Collateral estoppel may be raised by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion.
• Poage v. Crane Co. (Eastern District, 2nd Division, 2017). A plaintiff can show a valve maker's product was a substantial factor in causing mesothelioma through a co-worker's testimony about shared work on the valves, and the maker owes a duty to warn and to design safely where its valves required or specified asbestos gaskets and packing. Missouri's statutory cap on punitive damages does not apply to this wrongful death action, and a defendant's setoff under § 537.060 is limited to settlements actually reached, not possible future asbestos trust recoveries.
• Urbach v. the Okonite Company (Eastern District, 2017). Under Wisconsin substantive law, co-worker testimony and expert bystander-exposure evidence can support a jury finding that a defendant's asbestos product was a substantial factor in causing mesothelioma. Wisconsin's wrongful-death cap applies after fault is apportioned, and the Wisconsin statute requiring assignment of asbestos trust claims before collecting a judgment is procedural, so Missouri law governs it.
• Bergstrom v. Welco Manufacturing Company (Eastern District, 1st Division, 2015). On summary judgment, the non-movant gets all reasonable inferences; where the movant needs an inference to prevail and the evidence supports an equally probable contrary one, a genuine dispute exists, so summary judgment fails.
• Foreman v. AO Smith Corp. (Eastern District, 4th Division, 2015). Under Maryland's frequency, proximity and regularity test, exposure to a defendant's asbestos products may be shown circumstantially, and the plaintiff's testimony plus expert testimony was enough for a jury. A settlement release makes a settling party a joint tortfeasor for statutory reduction only if it so provides, and an inconsistent verdict claim not raised before the jury is discharged is waived.
• Wagner v. Bondex International, Inc. (Western District, 2012). Missouri requires but-for causation (the substantial factor test applies only in two-fires cases), and a plaintiff must identify the defendant's asbestos-containing product as the source of exposure. Section 537.060 reduces a judgment only by settlements actually made, not by trust payments the plaintiff never sought.
• Nugent v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas, Inc. (Eastern District, 3rd Division, 1996). A trial court has broad discretion over use of a deposition, and when a party uses part of it the other side may use the rest to explain. It also has discretion to limit expert testimony to each expert's area of expertise and to allow exhibits to be published to the jury in booklets.
• Harashe v. Flintkote Co. (Eastern District, 3rd Division, 1993). A buyer of a company's assets can be liable as successor under a de facto merger when it continues operations, pays with its own stock, and requires the seller to dissolve. Expert testimony that exposure to the defendant's product contributed causally to mesothelioma satisfies the substantial-factor causation test of Hagen.
• Hagen v. Celotex Corp. (1991). A plaintiff must show through expert testimony that each defendant's product was a substantial factor in causing the harm. Evidence showing only asbestos exposure in general, or that a defendant's product may have contributed, does not make a submissible case against that defendant.

Montana

• Rosling v. Associated Loggers Exchange (2019). Whether a condition is an occupational disease is decided by the claimant's lifetime of employment under the major contributing cause standard, and liability then falls on the employer, and its insurer, of last injurious exposure under a 'potentially causal' standard, even if the disease was diagnosed before that employment.
• Atchley v. Louisiana Pacific Corp. (2018). A claimant first proves an occupational disease by showing that employment significantly aggravated or contributed to it. Under the last injurious exposure rule, liability then falls on the employer or insurer at risk when the worker was last exposed to the type and kind of conditions that could have caused the disease, even if earlier exposures were larger.
• Wommack v. National Farmers Union Property & Casualty Co. (2017). Under Montana's last injurious exposure rule and the 'potentially causal' standard, once a claimant proves an occupational disease, liability falls on the last insurer at risk when his working conditions were of the type and kind that could have caused the disease. That insurer carries the burden of proving it is not liable.
• Baeth v. Liberty NW Ins. Corp. (2014). Where an occupational disease involves successive employers, the last employer is liable if the claimant's work there was of the same type and kind as the conditions that could have caused the disease. Pursuing civil suits against other parties for the same exposure does not judicially estop a claimant from a workers' compensation claim.
• Monroe v. Maco Workers Comp Trust (2014). Where an occupational disease has not previously been adjudicated against any employer, the "potentially causal" standard applies, so liability falls on the employer of the last employment with exposure of the type and kind that could have caused the disease. The one-year claim period for an occupational disease runs from when the claimant knew or should have known the condition resulted from that employment.
• Peterson v. Liberty NW Ins. Corp. (2013). Under § 39-72-403, MCA, an occupational disease claim must be filed within one year of when the claimant knew or should have known the condition resulted from an occupational disease; the period began when Peterson was diagnosed with asbestos-related disease and knew of his asbestos exposure at work.
• Johnson v. Liberty Northwest Insurance Corporation (2009). Under the last injurious exposure rule, the insurer for the last employer in whose employment the worker was injuriously exposed is liable for the whole occupational disease; about eight years of asbestos exposure at the last employer was enough to be injurious and sufficient to cause the disease.

Nebraska

• Olivotto v. DeMarco Bros. Co. (2007). Under the last injurious exposure rule, liability for an occupational disease falls on the employer whose work exposed the employee in a way that could cause the disease. A worker who retired decades before disability suffered no loss of earning capacity and gets no weekly indemnity benefit.
• Osteen v. AC & S., Inc. (1981). Where an asbestos-related occupational disease develops over successive employments and its onset cannot be pinpointed, the employer of the last injurious exposure pays the entire award. That exposure need only be of a kind that could cause the disease, and the limitations period and benefit rate run from the date disability is first incurred.

Nevada

• Potter v. Crane Co. (2022). In an asbestos claim a plaintiff must show that the particular defendant sufficiently exposed him to asbestos; without a product traceable to the defendant, negligence, strict liability and conspiracy claims fail, and a holding company is not liable for its subsidiary absent a successor-liability exception.
• State Indus. Ins. System v. Jesch (1985). Nevada's occupational disease time limits for dust diseases do not bar compensation for latent asbestos-related mesothelioma, and the last injurious exposure rule applies to successive-employer claims, so the claimant need not prove which one employment caused the disease.

New Jersey

• Losurdo v. Viacomcbs Inc. (2025). Under maritime law and DeVries, a manufacturer's duty to warn turns on whether it directed incorporation of asbestos parts, knew the integrated product was dangerous, and had no reason to believe the sailors using it would know of the danger. Under Miles, punitive and loss-of-consortium damages are not available in a maritime wrongful death action.
• Fowler v. Akzo Nobel Chemicals, Inc. (2022). An asbestos manufacturer or supplier that puts inadequate warnings on its asbestos bags has breached its duty to the worker, even if it gave adequate information to the employer. A medical-causation charge on the substantial factor test was sufficient even though it did not use the Sholtis 'frequency, regularity and proximity' wording.
• Marino v. Abex Corporation (2022). A trial court may sanction a party for violating a discovery consent order by directing a verdict on duty and breach, and on general causation, where the violation was deliberate and the sanction fit it. Admitting a doctor's out-of-court statement about the cause of the disease was an error that did not warrant reversal.
• Fowler v. Akzo Nobel Chemicals, Inc. (2021). A manufacturer cannot delegate its duty to warn to an employer but may discharge it, if reasonable under the circumstances, by giving adequate warnings to the employer; the jury must be told this. In multi-defendant asbestos cases, medical causation instructions must include the frequency, regularity and proximity test, not just a general proximate cause charge.
• Hammell v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2020). Under the DeVries test applied in maritime law, whether a manufacturer had a duty to warn about asbestos-containing parts made by others depends on factual questions: whether its product required the part, whether it knew the integrated product was dangerous, and whether it had reason to think users would realize the danger. Disputed facts about what the Navy knew also defeated summary judgment on the government contractor defense.
• In re Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Products (2020). Expert testimony is admissible under Rule 702 if it rests on reliable methods, and disagreements over how to interpret studies go to weight rather than admissibility. Opinions that go beyond the supporting data, such as extrapolating from an in vitro study to human cancer causation, are excluded.
• Whelan v. Armstrong International Inc. (2019). A manufacturer or distributor can be strictly liable for failing to warn about its product's asbestos-containing components and a third party's replacement components, if the original components were integral to the product, routine maintenance required replacing them with similar asbestos-containing parts, and exposure was a substantial factor in causing the disease.
• Condon v. Advance Thermal Hydronics, Inc. (2018). Under the frequency, regularity and proximity test, a plaintiff must present evidence from which a jury could find it more likely than not that he was exposed to the defendant's product; speculation that a boiler maker's packaged boilers contained the defendant's wet cement is not enough.
• Whelan v. Armstrong International Inc. (2018). A manufacturer has a strict-liability duty to warn when its product as marketed contained asbestos components integral to its function and it reasonably knew routine maintenance would require replacing them with other asbestos components. The duty extends to the danger from those replacement parts even if the manufacturer did not make or supply them.