Choice of Law in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on which state's law applies: 374 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.

About this issue

Asbestos exposure often spans many years and several places: a shipyard in one state, a refinery in another, and a diagnosis after retiring somewhere else. Because states' rules differ sharply on things like causation, take-home duty, damages caps and joint liability, which state's law applies can decide the case.

The court uses the choice-of-law rules of the state where the case was filed (a federal court hearing a state-law case generally uses that state's rules too, and keeps them after a convenience transfer). States use different methods:

• the place of injury rule (where the injury occurred, which is itself hard to pin down for a disease);
• the most significant relationship test, weighing where the exposure, the conduct and the parties are centered;
• governmental interest analysis, asking which state's policies would be furthered by applying its law.

A court may apply different states' law to different issues in the same case. Deadlines get their own analysis: many states have borrowing statutes that can apply another state's shorter limitations period, and repose statutes raise similar questions. Federal maritime law, when it applies, displaces state law on many questions.

Alabama

• Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc. (2020). An order granting a plaintiff's Rule 41(a)(2) motion to voluntarily dismiss the rest of a complaint is a final judgment for appeal, and a court may refuse to consider a new choice-of-law (maritime law) argument first raised in a motion for reconsideration after summary judgment.
• Morgan v. Bill Vann Company, Inc. (2013). Predicting Alabama law, a pump manufacturer is not liable, and has no duty to warn, for asbestos-containing packing and gaskets made by others and used with its pump unless it manufactured, sold or distributed them or is sued for a defect in its own product.
• Morgan v. Bill Vann Company, Inc. (2013). Under Alabama law, asbestos personal injury claims based on last exposure before May 19, 1979 were barred under the last-exposure rule and were not revived by the later discovery-rule statute. A plaintiff must also show post-1979 exposure to the specific defendant's product with evidence beyond speculation to benefit from the discovery rule.
• Henderson v. MeadWESTVACO Corporation (2009). Under Alabama's wrongful-death statute, a personal representative suing in Alabama must show the decedent could have brought a personal-injury action had he lived, and that is judged by Alabama's statute of limitations under the lex fori rule, not another state's longer period.

Arizona

• Pounders v. Enserch E & C, Inc. (2013). For a long-latency disease such as mesothelioma, the place of injury under Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws § 175 is where the disease first manifests. The place of injury is only one factor, and the law of the state with the most significant relationship governs.
• Pounders v. Enserch E & C, Inc. (1st Division, Dept. A, 2012). For choice of law, a person exposed to asbestos is injured where the exposure first takes effect, not where the disease later appears. New Mexico's statute of repose shields designers and installers of customized improvements to real property even when they supplied the defective asbestos materials as integral components.

Arkansas

• Thomas v. Borg-Warner Morse Tec LLC (2018). Under Arkansas law, a plaintiff must show frequent exposure to a defendant's asbestos product and causation, and market share liability is not allowed. A non-buyer warranty claimant must give the defendant pre-suit notice, and a design defect claim does not require proof of a safer alternative design.

California

• Speck v. CBS Corporation (2024). Under federal maritime law a plaintiff must show actual exposure to the defendant's asbestos-containing product and that the exposure was a substantial contributing factor in causing the injury, and expert testimony is not required to prove this. The government contractor defense fails where the product was substantially the same as one sold commercially or the contractor did not show the Navy required asbestos.
• Elorreaga v. Rockwell Automation, Inc. (2022). Under the Atlantic Sounding and Batterton framework, punitive damages are unavailable under general maritime law where plaintiffs show no historical basis for them, and Ninth Circuit precedent (Smith v. Trinidad) bars loss of consortium damages under general maritime law.
• Shelton v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2022). Under federal maritime law, a specific-causation expert must analyze the plaintiff's actual exposure (frequency, duration, proximity) to each defendant's products, by a qualitative or quantitative method, rather than relying on product presence and general causation principles.
• Toy v. Warren Pumps (In re Asbestos) (2021). Maritime law applies to naval shipyard asbestos claims where some exposure occurred aboard vessels in drydock, and plaintiffs must show exposure to the defendant's asbestos products that was a substantial factor in causing the disease. A pump maker may owe a duty to warn about asbestos in third-party parts its product requires, and conflicting evidence on exposure precludes summary judgment.
• Sabetian v. Fluor Enterprises, Inc. (2nd Appellate District, 7th Division, 2021). A jury's asbestos causation finding stands if substantial evidence shows exposure to the defendant's product substantially contributed to the plaintiff's aggregate dose. An expert may rely on case reports for a very rare disease, and a request to apply foreign law must be timely. Under California's governmental interest test, California law governed compensatory damages.
• Swanson v. The Marley-Wylain Co. (2nd Appellate District, 1st Division, 2021). Michigan law governed the negligence claim, and under it a plaintiff must show that the defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in producing the injury, not merely in increasing the risk of injury. An instruction using California's risk-contribution standard was therefore error.
• Textron, Inc. v. Travelers Casualty and Surety Company (2nd Appellate District, 4th Division, 2020). Collateral estoppel applies only if the identical issue was actually litigated and decided in the earlier case, and a prior ruling that Rhode Island law governed policies covering claims in 19 states did not decide the choice-of-law question for a California injury. Judicial estoppel also fails where the party's positions in the two cases are not inconsistent.
• Malek v. Chevron U.S.A. (In re Laosd Asbestos Cases) (2nd Appellate District, 4th Division, 2019). A defendant that did not own, operate or control a premises, was not a joint venturer or principal of the operator, and did not undertake responsibility for worker safety owes no duty of care; workers who only incidentally benefit from a contract are not intended third party beneficiaries.
• Hake v. Allied Fluid Products Corp. (1st Appellate District, 4th Division, 2018). A party who does not timely ask the trial court to apply a particular state's law waives that choice-of-law argument on appeal. Under the Kansas statute, a plaintiff must show the exposure was a substantial factor in causing the injury, and expert testimony that the exposure only contributed to the risk or was one of many cumulative exposures did not meet that standard.
• Hart v. Special Electric Company, Inc. (1st Appellate District, 5th Division, 2018). A Chapter 11 plan that allows insurers to defend claims under applicable state law does not preempt Wisconsin's two-year claims period for dissolved corporations. A dissolution notice that omits the required description of claim information has only a technical defect, which does not bar the limitations period absent prejudice to the claimant.
• Polar-Mohr Maschinenvertriebsgesellschaft Gmbh, Co. KG v. Zurich American Insurance Company (2018). Under both California and New York law, a policy covering bodily injury "including death at any time resulting therefrom" requires "all sums" allocation rather than pro rata allocation. An insurer that breaches its duty to defend must rebut the presumption that the insured's defense costs are reasonable and necessary.
• Flintkote Co. v. Aviva Plc (2016). Under California law and Fuller-Austin, an excess insurer's obligation to pay amounts the insured is 'obligated to pay' to a section 524(g) asbestos trust is limited to the trust's payment percentage, not the liquidated value. California Insurance Code section 1616 mandates a bond from a nonadmitted alien insurer that files a pleading.
• Flintkote Company v. Aviva Plc (2016). Under California law, following Fuller-Austin, an insurer whose policies cover sums the insured is 'obligated to pay' owes only the payment percentage the insured's § 524(g) asbestos trust actually pays claimants, not the claims' full liquidated value. Cal. Ins. Code § 1616 makes a bond mandatory for a nonadmitted alien insurer filing pleadings.
• Kordestani v. ExxonMOBIL Oil Corporation (2nd Appellate District, 4th Division, 2016). Summary adjudication of one claim or one issue of duty (premises liability, strict product liability) does not preclude other negligence theories based on different duties, such as a special relationship arising from contract or an undertaking to give technical advice. A party not aggrieved by an appealable order lacks standing to cross-appeal.
• The Marley-Wylain Co. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County (2nd Appellate District, 1st Division, 2016). Under California's governmental interest analysis, the law of the state where the asbestos exposure occurred (Michigan) applies to the claims against the defendant, because that state's interest would be more impaired than California's, to which the plaintiff later moved.
• Green v. CertainTEED Corporation (1st Appellate District, 3rd Division, 2015). Under California's governmental interest test, Texas law governs claims against defendants whose products or facilities exposed a Texas resident in Texas, even if other law applies to other defendants. Texas law requires proof that the exposure exceeded a harm-inducing threshold, and an 'any exposure' opinion does not meet that standard.
• Scott v. Ford Motor Company (1st Appellate District, 1st Division, 2014). The sophisticated user defense did not bar a failure to warn claim because Ford did not prove that service station owners knew or should have known of automotive asbestos risks during the early part of Scott's career. Under California's governmental interest analysis, Michigan has no interest in having its ban on punitive damages applied in California courts, so no true conflict exists and California law applies.
• Nelson v. Air and Liquid Systems Corp. (2013). Under California law, a plaintiff must present evidence of exposure to asbestos from the specific defendant's product; evidence supporting only conjecture that the decedent was near or used a defendant's asbestos-containing product is insufficient to survive summary judgment.
• Campbell v. Ford Motor Company (2nd Appellate District, 7th Division, 2012). Under the Rowland factors as clarified in Cabral, an employer or premises owner has no duty to protect employees' family members from secondary (take-home) asbestos exposure. New Jersey's statute of repose did not bar the claim because it excludes persons in possession and control as owner.
• Robinson v. Ssw, Inc. (1st Appellate District, 3rd Division, 2012). California Corporations Code section 2010 does not apply to dissolved foreign corporations, so the law of the state of incorporation governs how long a dissolved corporation can be sued; under Nebraska's five-year survival statute the suit was untimely.
• McCann v. Foster Wheeler, LLC (2010). Section 361 does not require California's statute of limitations to be applied without choice-of-law analysis, so the governmental interest test governs. Under that test, Oklahoma's interest in applying its statute of repose to out-of-state designers of Oklahoma improvements would be more impaired than California's interest in a remedy for a current resident.
• McCann v. Foster Wheller, LLC (2nd Appellate District, 8th Division, 2010). Under Oklahoma's statute of repose, a boiler can be an improvement to real property and its manufacturer a designer of that improvement if substantial evidence supports those findings. Tax treatment is important but not dispositive of whether machinery is an improvement.
• McCann v. Foster Wheeler (2nd Appellate District, 8th Division, 2008). Under California's governmental interest choice-of-law analysis, California law applied rather than Oklahoma's statute of repose, because California's interest in giving its long-term resident a remedy for asbestos injury would be more impaired than Oklahoma's interest in protecting a non-resident defendant.
• Honer v. Ford Motor Company (2nd Appellate District, 7th Division, 2007). Under Code of Civil Procedure section 361, a California-citizen plaintiff who held the cause of action from accrual is not barred by another state's statute of repose. A premises owner was not entitled to summary judgment where the record on its knowledge and control was disputed.
• Cossman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp. (1st Appellate District, 1st Division, 2003). Under California's borrowing statute (Code Civ. Proc. § 361), a nonresident's claim that arose in another state is barred in California if it is time-barred there, and the exception for California citizens requires citizenship at the time the claim accrued.
• Petrini v. Mohasco Corp. (1st Appellate District, 2nd Division, 1998). A corporation that merges a subsidiary into itself is liable as successor for the subsidiary's liabilities, including unknown tort liabilities, under New York, Nevada and California law, even if the subsidiary had no assets at the merger.

Colorado

• Miller v. Celotex Corp. (1989). Under Colorado's products liability statute, a claim arises when the plaintiff knows or should know the facts of his injury and its wrongful cause, not when he learns of a specific legal theory such as failure to warn.

Connecticut

• BellSouth Telecommunications v. WR Grace (1996). Under the Connecticut Product Liability Act, an asbestos abatement claim accrues when the plaintiff knows or should know of actual contamination and of the causal link between the defendant's product and that contamination; it does not wait until the full extent of the loss is known.

Delaware

• Salvemini v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2025). Under maritime law a plaintiff must show exposure to the particular defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in the injury, and vague testimony that cannot separate that defendant's product from others fails. General maritime law did not reach a spouse's land-based take-home exposure when the plaintiffs did not show the maritime connection test was met.
• Burhenn v. Celotex Asbestos Settlement Trust (2024). A claim against an asbestos settlement trust is governed by the trust plan's own filing deadline (three years from first diagnosis), and tolling under the plan applies only if the trust claim was timely filed. Even under ordinary limitations law, via Delaware's borrowing statute, the claim was time-barred, and cross-jurisdictional tolling does not apply where the original foreign filing was untimely.
• Braxton v. J-M Mfg. Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2024). Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.004, a defendant need only plead a factual basis showing a third party's potential responsibility to designate it. A bankruptcy proof of claim can support that pleading, and a designation after limitations has run is not barred where the defendant timely disclosed the third parties.
• Jordonek v. Hennessy Indus. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2023). Interlocutory appeal under Supreme Court Rule 42 was not warranted because the benefits of certification did not outweigh the costs of piecemeal litigation, with the first-impression question being one of Ohio rather than Delaware law and other defendants remaining in the case.
• Droz v. Hennessy Industries, LLC (2022). Under Rule 56 and Stigliano, once a defendant shows it made both asbestos-containing and asbestos-free products at the time of exposure, the plaintiff need only show by direct or circumstantial evidence a genuine issue whether she was exposed to the asbestos-containing product; exclusive use or direct evidence is not required.
• Thorne v. Crane Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2021). Applying Delaware choice-of-law rules, the court predicted Delaware would use the manifestation approach to locate the place of injury in an asbestos case, so the presumption favoring the law of the place of injury applied and was not overcome.
• Carnes v. General Dynamics Corp. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2021). Under Texas law a plaintiff must prove that, more probably than not, he breathed asbestos fibers from the defendant's product, and an expert's speculation without record support of asbestos in the components cannot create a genuine factual dispute.
• Gibbs v. 84 Lumber Company (2020). Under South Carolina law as applied by the court, a raw-material supplier of asbestos that did not control its customers' finished products could reasonably rely on sophisticated manufacturer-intermediaries to warn end users. It therefore owed no duty to warn Mr. Gibbs, and the adequacy of its warnings did not need to be assessed.
• Pearsons v. Heidelberg USA (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2020). Under Vermont law, a plaintiff shows substantial factor causation with evidence of more than de minimis exposure, and a right to recover that vested through exposure before the 1967 enactment of the asbestos-related statute of repose is not barred by it.
• Petit v. Hennessy Indus. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2020). Under Stigliano, where a manufacturer made both asbestos and non-asbestos versions of a product, the plaintiff must present direct or circumstantial evidence of exposure to the asbestos-containing version. Under Rhode Island's frequency, regularity and proximity test, a plaintiff must show regular exposure to friable asbestos in connection with the defendant's product.
• Pruitt v. Deere & Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2020). Under maritime law a plaintiff must show exposure to each defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Georgia law requires proof that the product was a contributing factor and that the plaintiff was near its use. An unopposed motion still requires the court to find that the undisputed facts support judgment.
• Shaw v. American Friction (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2020). A court deciding whether to change a trial date under a scheduling order applies a good cause standard: whether the movant was generally diligent, whether the need for more time was foreseeable or its fault, and whether denial would create a substantial risk of unfairness. Review is for abuse of discretion, and arguments for a different standard not raised below will not be considered.
• Mosher v. ABB (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2019). Under maritime law and Colorado law, a plaintiff must show exposure to each defendant's asbestos-containing product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury; minimal or unidentified exposure is insufficient, and failure to oppose a motion does not alone justify summary judgment.
• Stimson v. J-M Mfg. Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2019). A plaintiff must show more than a possibility of exposure to the defendant's asbestos product, and a motion for reargument cannot rely on deposition testimony that counsel knew of and could have presented before the summary judgment ruling.
• Rogers v. Warren Pumps (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2019). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing injury; mere presence of a product at the workplace is insufficient. Under Delaware law, a plaintiff must show a product nexus, meaning proximity to the defendant's asbestos product when it was used.