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.

Illinois

• Hasenberg v. Asbestos Corporation Ltd. (2015). A plaintiff in an asbestos case may use circumstantial evidence to show exposure to a defendant's asbestos-containing products. Evidence that the defendant made the pumps and sold asbestos-containing replacement parts to the Navy was enough to create a genuine fact issue.
• Kochera v. General Electric Company (2015). A physician board certified in occupational medicine and certified as a B Reader is qualified to give diagnosis and causation opinions on asbestos disease. Under Illinois law and Seventh Circuit precedent, an expert's reliance on an "every exposure" theory does not by itself make the testimony inadmissible under Rule 702 and Daubert.
• McALVEY v. Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC (2015). Under Illinois and maritime law, a plaintiff may use circumstantial evidence, such as coworker testimony and proximity to the defendant's product, to show exposure, and need not identify the specific maker of replacement parts.
• Neureuther v. Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC (2015). A physician board certified in occupational medicine and a certified B Reader may testify on asbestosis diagnosis and causation, and reliance on an 'every exposure' theory does not make the testimony inadmissible under Illinois's frequency, regularity and proximity rule and Seventh Circuit precedent.
• Neureuther v. Atlas Copco Compressors, LLC (2015). An occupational medicine physician who reads x-rays for asbestos is qualified to opine on asbestosis diagnosis and causation. Under Illinois law and Seventh Circuit precedent, reliance on an 'every exposure' theory does not make such testimony inadmissible under Daubert.
• Smith v. Illinois Central R. Co. (4th District, 2015). In an asbestos case a defendant may present evidence of the plaintiff's other asbestos exposure to rebut proximate cause, without conceding the disease or disclosing its own causation expert. Excluding that evidence was not harmless where the plaintiff's case relied on dust from the neighboring UNARCO plant.
• Holloway v. Sprinkmann Sons Corporation (4th District, 2014). A party who asks for a sanction other than a mistrial when opposing counsel misbehaves forfeits that misconduct as a ground for a new trial. A general defense verdict is not against the manifest weight of the evidence where the proof that the plaintiff's exposure was enough to cause her asbestosis was speculative.
• Krik v. Crane Co. (2014). Expert opinion that any or every exposure to asbestos causes disease, offered without analysis of the plaintiff's actual exposure level, is not reliable under Rule 702 and Daubert. Under Illinois and maritime law, more than minimal exposure is required to show causation.
• Quirin v. Lorillard Tobacco Co. (2014). Under Illinois law, an asbestos plaintiff need only show through the frequency, regularity and proximity test that exposure to the defendant's product was a substantial factor contributing to the disease, not that it was sufficient alone to cause it. Evidence of the exact dose is not required.
• Quirin v. Lorillard Tobacco Company (2014). An expert who opines that only significant exposures, not any minimal exposure, to asbestos in joint compound contributed to mesothelioma offers admissible testimony under Rule 702 and Daubert. Disputes over fiber potency, dose and epidemiological gaps go to weight, not admissibility.
• Quirin v. Lorillard Tobacco Company (2014). Under Rule 702 and Daubert, challenges to the age and condition of the tested cigarettes and to inconsistent test results go to the weight of an expert's evidence, not its admissibility. A differential diagnosis using the Helsinki Criteria is an accepted method for attributing mesothelioma to asbestos.
• Zickuhr v. Ericsson, Inc. (1st District, 6th Division, 2011). In an asbestos case a plaintiff shows causation by the frequency, regularity and proximity of exposure to the defendant's asbestos product, without proof of the exact quantity of fibers; the jury's credibility choices on product identification stand where evidence supports them.
• Nolan v. Weil-McLain (2009). Thacker v. UNR Industries created no presumption of causation once a plaintiff meets the frequency, regularity and proximity test, and a defendant may offer other-exposure evidence to support a sole proximate cause defense. Excluding that evidence was reversible error.
• Nolan v. Weil-McLain (4th District, 2006). Once a plaintiff meets the frequency, regularity and proximity test, the defendant is presumed a proximate cause and evidence of the decedent's other asbestos exposures is irrelevant; the defendant may rebut only by showing no exposure to its product, insufficient exposure, or too little asbestos in its product.
• Caruso v. M & O Insulation Co. (4th District, 2003). A directed verdict is improper where there is some evidence, including circumstantial evidence and reasonable inferences, that the defendant sold asbestos-containing products to the plant, and where witness credibility is decisive.
• Spain v. Owens Corning Fiberglass Corp. (4th District, 1999). Once a plaintiff shows frequency, regularity and proximity of exposure to the defendant's asbestos product, the defendant is presumed a proximate cause and may not introduce evidence of other asbestos exposures unless it files contribution actions against those other manufacturers. Under amended Rule 213, the treating physician exception to opinion disclosure no longer exists.
• McClure v. Owens Corning Fiberglas Corp. (4th District, 1998). Evidence of parallel conduct, if persuasive enough, can alone support a jury finding of civil conspiracy among asbestos manufacturers (the antitrust rule on parallel conduct does not apply). Once a conspiracy is shown by clear and convincing evidence, proximate cause need only be shown by a preponderance.
• Hartman v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp. (5th District, 1994). Circumstantial evidence of regular exposure to the defendant's asbestos product over several months, together with medical evidence, can support an inference that the product probably caused mesothelioma. Trial courts keep discretion over sanctions for late expert disclosure under Rule 220, and a settlement may be allocated to a spouse who signed the releases, so that part is not set off against the verdict.
• Kieffer and Co., Inc. v. Industrial Com'n (2nd District, Industrial Commission Division, 1994). The Commission's findings on disputed facts stood because they were not against the manifest weight of the evidence: the denial of temporary total disability benefits was upheld, and the last employer, Kieffer, was liable for the widow's death benefits and medical costs.
• Betts v. Manville Personal Injury Trust (4th District, 1992). A new trial was required because of plaintiffs' counsel's prejudicial tactics, an undisclosed expert, speculative cancer-risk evidence, evidence from another plant not shown to be similar, and over-broad collateral estoppel against Grefco. A prior finding fixing when a plaintiff learned of her injury can bar a later suit on limitations grounds, and a plaintiff who gets no allocation of an earlier settlement bears the burden on the setoff.
• Thacker v. Unr Industries, Inc. (1992). In asbestos cases a plaintiff must show frequency, regularity and proximity of exposure to the defendant's asbestos. Fiber drift evidence can meet the proximity element, and it need not come from expert testimony.
• Thacker v. Unr Industries, Inc. (4th District, 1991). Evidence that asbestos dust from all sources drifted through the plant, combined with testimony that slight contact with asbestos could cause cancer, created a jury question on whether Manville asbestos was a proximate cause. Claims of error not raised in the post-trial motion in a jury case are waived under Rule 366(b)(2)(iii).
• Wehmeier v. Unr Industries, Inc. (4th District, 1991). In asbestos cases Illinois courts apply the Lohrmann frequency, regularity and proximity test for causation. Expert fiber-drift evidence can establish the proximity prong but cannot alone support an inference of causation.
• Leng v. Celotex Corp. (1st District, 1990). Illinois does not recognize market share liability in asbestos cases, so a plaintiff who cannot identify the manufacturers of the asbestos products that caused the injury fails to state a cause of action under that theory.
• H & H Plumbing Co. v. Indus. Comm'n (5th District, 1988). The Commission's finding of asbestos exposure and an occupational disease could rest on lay testimony, circumstantial evidence and a test of a similar blanket, and was not against the manifest weight of the evidence. The employer in whose employment the worker was last exposed is liable even if earlier exposure also contributed.
• Zupan v. Industrial Com. (5th District, 1986). Under the pre-1975 Occupational Diseases Act, an ordinary disease of life is compensable as an occupational disease where the employee was exposed to the hazard at work in a greater degree and in a different manner than the public generally.

Indiana

• Hostetler v. Johnson Controls, Inc. (2020). Experts opining on an individual's increased risk of future harm cannot rely on exceedance of regulatory values or a no-safe-dose theory without a reliable basis tied to that person's actual dose and duration of exposure. Such opinions do not satisfy Rule 702.
• Hedden v. CBS Corporation (2015). Maritime law applies to asbestos exposure aboard a Navy ship, and the two-disease rule governs under maritime law. Kentucky law governs the non-maritime claims, and its one-disease rule bars a mesothelioma suit after an earlier suit over asbestosis.
• Harris v. AC & S, Inc. (1995). Under the Seventh Circuit's Peerman decision, a plaintiff must produce evidence supporting an inference that the decedent inhaled asbestos dust from the defendant's product, meaning the product as used at the job site could possibly have produced a significant amount of dust that might have been inhaled. Generic trade-name identification does not identify a particular manufacturer, and affidavits that contradict deposition testimony are disregarded.
• Knox v. AC & S, Inc. (1990). Indiana's occupational disease act makes compensation the exclusive remedy only against an employer for disease arising out of the employment, and an employee may still sue third parties for the same disease. A defendant that was once the employer must produce evidence that exposure to its products outside the employment could not have contributed to the disease.

Iowa

• Huber v. Watson (1997). In a legal malpractice suit over an asbestos case, the plaintiff must show the underlying suit would have succeeded. Contract specifications naming asbestos products, together with evidence of the manufacturers' corporate successors, gave a jury enough to find product exposure and proximate cause. The state-of-the-art defense does not bar failure-to-warn claims based on later-acquired knowledge.
• Perrin v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1994). Under Iowa law, evidence that a defendant's asbestos products were in stock at shipyards and used on ships generally shows only a possibility of exposure and cannot support a reasonable inference that the plaintiff was exposed to them aboard his ship. Iowa has not adopted a burden-shifting rule for asbestos cases.
• Spaur v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1994). Asbestos plaintiffs may prove causation under a flexible substantial-factor test, with circumstantial evidence of exposure to the defendant's product, without proving how much that product contributed to the disease. Punitive damages in asbestos cases are not per se unconstitutional, and the defendant bears the burden of showing a due process violation.
• Beeman v. Manville Corp. Asbestos Fund (1993). Evidence of cancer risk from asbestos is admissible to show a manufacturer's duty to warn and the reasonableness of a plaintiff's fear of cancer, and proof of exposure plus cumulative-effect expert testimony can create a jury question on proximate cause. Knowledge sufficient to trigger a duty to warn does not by itself support punitive damages, and Iowa law does not allow a separate award for lost opportunity to live out a full life expectancy.

Kansas

• Little v. Budd Co. (2018). The Safety Appliance Act preempts only state claims about devices listed in the statute, and pipe insulation is not listed. Whether the Locomotive Inspection Act preempts the claims turns on a disputed fact: whether the insulated pipes were locomotive appurtenances.
• Little v. Budd Company (2018). General-causation expert testimony that asbestos causes mesothelioma and is dose-responsive is admissible under Rule 702 and Daubert when the expert offers no opinion on the plaintiff's specific causation. A historian of asbestos knowledge may describe the development of knowledge about its hazards but may not testify about what a particular defendant knew or should have known.
• Menne v. Celotex Corp. (1986). Predicting Nebraska law under Erie, the court held that Nebraska would adopt alternative liability (Restatement (Second) of Torts § 433B), so once an asbestos plaintiff shows exposure to defendants' products and resulting injury, the burden shifts to each defendant to prove its product did not contribute, failing which the defendants are jointly and severally liable.

Kentucky

• Williams v. Schneider Electric USA, Inc. (2023). Duty turns on foreseeability, not on labels like bystander, and household members who regularly and repeatedly came into close contact with a worker's asbestos-contaminated clothes over an extended period are owed a duty where the take-home danger was foreseeable by the late 1960s. A brief, unrelated stint of employment does not make workers' compensation exclusivity bar the non-work-related claims.
• Papineau v. Brake Supply Company, Inc. (2021). Under Kentucky's substantial-factor test, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the disease. A cumulative-dose opinion tied to the defendant's specific products, as distinct from the rejected each-and-every-exposure theory, can create a jury question. A seller that relines used brake shoes alters them and falls outside the Kentucky Middleman Statute.
• Letcher County Board OF Education v. Hall (2018). Under KRS 342.0011(4), an exposure is injurious if it could independently cause the disease. Where the evidence compelled a finding that asbestos exposure continued until retirement in 2003, the 20-year limit for asbestos-related disease claims was met, and the Board did not exceed its review authority in so finding.
• Landreth v. Brake Supply Company, Inc. (2017). A plaintiff must offer direct or circumstantial evidence showing a reasonable probability of actual exposure to a particular defendant's asbestos product that was a substantial cause of the disease. Evidence showing only a possibility of exposure, or equal likelihood of exposure to another maker's product, does not defeat summary judgment.
• Stallings v. Georgia Pacific Corp. (2017). Under Kentucky law as the Sixth Circuit has applied it in Martin and Moeller, expert testimony that any or every asbestos exposure contributes to disease does not meet the 'substantial factor' causation standard. The Kentucky Supreme Court's CertainTeed decision did not clearly adopt that theory, so the court remained bound by its own precedent.
• Surita v. Arvinmeritor, Inc. (2017). Under Kentucky law, negligence, strict liability, warranty and misrepresentation claims all require proof that each defendant's product was a substantial factor in causing the harm, meaning a probable rather than merely possible cause.
• Mannahan v. Eaton Corporation (2016). In an asbestos case the plaintiff must show, by direct or circumstantial evidence, that it was probable and not merely possible that he was exposed to the particular defendant's product. Evidence that a defendant's products may have reached the worksite, when other suppliers were equally possible sources, leaves a jury to speculate and does not defeat summary judgment.
• Anderson v. Motorola Solutions, Inc. (2015). In an asbestos case, circumstantial evidence that the plaintiff and the defendant's asbestos-containing products were in the same place at the same time and that inhaling the fibers was a substantial factor in the disease is enough to reach a jury on causation and product identification.
• Stallings v. Georgia-Pacific Corporation (2015). Under both maritime law and Kentucky law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product at a level high enough to make a finding of substantial causation more than conjecture. A manufacturer is not liable for asbestos in other makers' replacement parts, and an expert opinion that any exposure is a substantial cause does not meet that standard.
• Durham v. Ford Motor Company (2014). A premises owner has a duty to warn independent contractors' employees of asbestos only if it knew of the danger and the contractor lacked actual or constructive knowledge, and the plaintiff bears the burden of proving that. Under Kentucky's up-the-ladder immunity, an owner is immune for work that is regular or recurrent to its business.
• McGuire v. Lorillard Tobacco Company (2014). Negligent design and negligent failure-to-warn claims were subsumed in a strict liability instruction, so separate negligence instructions were unnecessary. Workers' compensation exclusivity covers only diseases arising out of employment. An erroneous instruction on that point was harmless because no reasonable possibility existed that it affected the verdict.
• Certainteed Corporation v. Dexter (2010). A participating defendant that wants fault apportioned to an empty-chair defendant must prove that defendant's liability, just as it would have to be proved against a participating defendant. A trial court's finding that a verdict is not sustained by sufficient evidence is reviewed for clear error, and its decision to grant a new trial is reviewed for abuse of discretion, with great deference to the trial court.
• Cardinal Industrial Insulation Co., Inc. v. Norris (2009). Under Kentucky's substantial factor test, a plaintiff must show that the defendant's asbestos work probably, not merely possibly, exposed him; fiber drift is expert evidence rather than a causation test and cannot alone support liability without proof of proximity. A claim of professional negligence against an engineer requires expert testimony on the standard of care.