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.

Pennsylvania

• Hogston v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (2009). Under Virginia law, exposure to a distributor's asbestos product may be shown by circumstantial evidence, but the evidence must make it probable rather than merely possible. A general distribution area and franchise, without evidence of deliveries to the plant, does not suffice when another distributor is shown to have delivered the product.
• Anderson v. Bondex Int'l (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2009). Under Virginia's statute of repose, an ordinary building material such as joint compound is "incorporated" into an improvement to real property only when its installation is complete. Exposures during the sanding and cleanup phases of installation therefore fall outside the statute.
• Hutchinson v. AP Green Industries, Inc. (2004). Under New Jersey law (Millison), an employer's knowing exposure of employees to asbestos does not meet the "intentional wrong" exception, so workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy for the resulting occupational disease.
• Jessop v. Acf Industries, LLC (2004). A trial court does not abuse its discretion in dismissing a case for forum non conveniens when an alternative forum is available and the private and public factors strongly favor dismissal, even if some discovery has occurred in Pennsylvania.
• Normann v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1991). Applying Pennsylvania's flexible interest-and-contacts choice-of-law analysis, the law of the state where the plaintiff was exposed to the defendant's products, and where the relationship was centered, governed liability. That state, New York, allows a state-of-the-art defense, and Pennsylvania did not.
• Tysenn v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1981). Mesothelioma falls within Pennsylvania's Occupational Disease Act, so compensation is the employee's exclusive remedy against his employer, and the intentional-tort exception did not apply on these facts. For the 1975 amendment barring contribution claims against employers, the disease "occurred" when it was or should have been discovered.

Rhode Island

• Wallace v. Trane Company (2021). Under Maine law, an asbestos plaintiff must show product nexus, meaning exposure to asbestos that originated with the defendant's own product, before medical causation is reached. Evidence of third-party sealants or replacement materials used on a defendant's boilers does not establish that nexus.
• Wallace v. Trane Company (2020). Applying Maine law, a plaintiff must show exposure to asbestos that originated with the defendant's product (product nexus). Evidence that the defendant's catalog sold the same kind of third-party sealant is not enough without proof that the actual sealant used was sold or recommended by the defendant.
• Turcotte v. 3M Company (2018). Under Rhode Island's interest-weighing approach, the law of the state with the most significant relationship governs, and depecage applies to issues rather than to individual defendants. In a multi-defendant asbestos case involving a single injury, different states' laws cannot be applied defendant by defendant.
• Murray v. 3M Company (2017). Under Rhode Island's interest-weighing choice-of-law approach, an asbestos plaintiff's place of injury is where he was diagnosed and treated, and the state of his domicile and diagnosis, here Tennessee, supplies the governing law. Applying that state's law is also constitutionally permissible given its contacts with the plaintiff.
• Baumgartner v. American Standard, Inc. (2015). Under Rhode Island's interest-weighing choice-of-law approach, Ohio law governed an Ohio resident's claim over Ohio-centered exposures. Under Ohio law, a bare-metal valve maker is not liable absent proof it supplied or specified asbestos, and boilers and turbines installed as improvements to real property fall under the ten-year statute of repose.
• Jones v. 84 Lumber Company (2015). Once a court has decided that another state's law governs, it must take judicial notice of that state's statutes and cases. Rules on damages, fault allocation and seller liability are substantive, so Tennessee law applies to them.
• Burdick v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2012). Under Rhode Island's significant relationship approach, choice of law in tort cases is fact-intensive, so a court cannot decide it on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion when the complaint lacks facts to apply the choice-of-law factors.
• Melford v. Abex Corporation (2012). A plaintiff seeking a stay on forum non conveniens grounds must show that the private- and public-interest factors both favor the stay. Where they stand in equipoise and the first-filed case is well advanced, the stay is denied, and the first-to-file rule also supports keeping the first-filed case.
• Carlson v. 84 Lumber Company (2011). Under Rhode Island's interest-weighing choice-of-law approach, the place of injury for a latent disease like mesothelioma is where the disease was diagnosed and symptoms began, and the state with the most significant relationship governs. Rule 44.1 notice of intent to apply foreign law need not include argument and sets no definite deadline.
• Asbury v. AW Chesterton Company (2010). A defendant seeking forum non conveniens dismissal bears a heavy burden, and dismissal is not warranted unless the private and public interest factors strongly favor it. A state whose only tie to the case is a generalized interest in preventing asbestos disease lacks the contacts needed for its law to be applied constitutionally; for a cumulative-exposure disease, the place of longest and most intense exposure weighs most in the interest-weighing analysis.

South Carolina

• Robertson v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (2021). Under the Lohrmann 'frequency, regularity, and proximity' test, applied the same way under South Carolina and North Carolina law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product on a regular basis over an extended period. Testimony that could not say how often or how much of the work involved the defendant's product did not meet that standard.
• Robertson v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (2020). Under the Lohrmann "frequency, regularity, and proximity" test, a plaintiff must show regular exposure over an extended period to a specific defendant's asbestos-containing product near where the plaintiff worked. Speculative co-worker testimony and documents that do not place the plaintiff near that product are not enough.
• Chesher v. 3M Company (2017). Under maritime law, an equipment manufacturer can owe a duty to warn about asbestos-containing replacement parts it did not supply if it actually incorporated asbestos components into its original product and either specified asbestos replacements or they were essential to the product's proper functioning (the Quirin approach).
• Dandridge v. Crane Co. (2016). Under maritime law, a valve manufacturer is not liable for asbestos in gaskets it did not make or supply. Even if the Quirin exception applies, it must be read narrowly and requires that the manufacturer actually incorporated asbestos-containing parts into its product, making exposure inevitable.
• Sparkman v. AW Chesterton Company (2014). Under South Carolina law, a plaintiff must show exposure to a specific defendant's asbestos product with frequency, regularity and proximity (the Lohrmann test), including for mesothelioma claims, and the mere presence of static asbestos is not exposure.
• Sparkman v. AW Chesterton Company (2014). Under South Carolina law, which applies the frequency, regularity and proximity test from Lohrmann, including in mesothelioma cases, a plaintiff must show regular, proximate exposure to the defendant's asbestos product. Coworker testimony combined with the defendant's own purchase and shipping records can create a jury question on that showing.
• Sparkman v. AW Chesterton Company (2014). Applying South Carolina law, the frequency, regularity and proximity test governs causation in mesothelioma cases. The court predicted the South Carolina Supreme Court would adopt the bare metal defense, so a manufacturer has no duty to warn about parts of its product that it did not make or supply.
• Henderson v. Allied Signal, Inc. (2007). Under the Door Closing Statute, a nonresident plaintiff must show the foreign corporation's asbestos exposure of the victim occurred in South Carolina, and exposure is actionable only if it meets the "frequency, regularity, and proximity" test; mere presence near static asbestos is not exposure.

Texas

• Felix v. Novelis Corporation (2021). Under the Texas borrowing statute, a nonresident plaintiff must sue within the Texas limitations period, and the Texas savings statute (§ 16.064) only suspends a limitations period that has not already run, so it cannot revive claims that expired before the first filing's dismissal.
• Petrie v. Novelis Corporation (2021). Under California law, a plaintiff need not show a quantified, defendant-specific dose that doubles the risk of mesothelioma, so the defendant had not met its summary judgment burden on causation. Claims the plaintiffs did not defend in response to the motion were recommended for dismissal.
• Andrews v. John Crane, Inc. (14th District, 2020). General maritime law preempts state law for a Navy sailor's asbestos products claims against a gasket maker, and DOHSA does not bar a general maritime survival recovery for the decedent seaman's pre-death pain and suffering.
• Uop, LLC v. Kozak (1st District, 2010). Under former section 150.002, a certificate of merit is mandatory and cannot be waived by the trial court. It is required for a negligence-based failure-to-warn claim against an engineering firm when the claim rests on the firm's engineering knowledge and expertise, whether the firm is sued as designer or as general contractor.
• Ford Motor Company v. Miller (14th District, 2008). Under Michigan law, as answered by the Michigan Supreme Court, a property owner owed no duty to a household member of an independent contractor's employee for asbestos fibers carried home on clothing, and benign asymptomatic pleural plaques with only an increased future cancer risk is not a present compensable injury.
• N RE General Electric Company (2008). Under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 71.051(b), the court must consider the listed factors without placing a burden of proof on the movant, and must dismiss when they weigh in favor of an outside forum. Comparative delay in the alternate forum, including a possible federal asbestos MDL transfer, gets little weight unless the forum offers no remedy at all.
• Satterfield v. Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc. (3rd District, 2008). A common law cause of action that has accrued and is pending is a vested right, and a statute that retroactively eliminates it without a grace period violates the Texas Constitution's ban on retroactive laws (art. I, § 16), and the police power does not override that ban.
• Exxon Mobil Corporation v. Altimore (14th District, 2007). A defendant owes a duty only if the risk of injury to the plaintiff or those similarly situated was foreseeable. The court held take-home asbestos exposure of an employee's wife was not foreseeable to Exxon until the 1972 OSHA regulations, and case reports were not scientifically reliable proof of foreseeability.
• Vaughn v. Ford Motor Co. (11th District, 2002). Under Illinois law, a plaintiff must show frequent, regular and proximate exposure to each particular defendant's asbestos product (the Thacker test); without such evidence, directed verdicts for each brake manufacturer are proper, and an erroneous expert exclusion is harmless if the experts' testimony would not bear on that gap.
• Gilcrease v. Tesoro Petroleum Corp. (4th District, 2001). A nonresident plaintiff suing in Texas under section 71.031 must satisfy the repose statute of the foreign state where the wrongful act occurred, as well as its statute of limitations. Alaska's repose statute applied, and neither its hazardous waste exception nor its foreign body tolling provision covered asbestos exposure.
• Pittsburgh Corning Corp. v. Walters (13th District, 1999). A nonresident plaintiff or survivor may sue in Texas for a wrongful death or personal injury occurring elsewhere under the Texas statute. A party seeking another state's law must file a timely motion that supplies that law. Land-based asbestos exposure during Navy submarine construction is not governed by maritime law.
• Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Malone (1998). A defendant may offer evidence of the profitability of its misconduct and of punitive damages or punitive settlement amounts actually paid for the same conduct to mitigate punitive damages; a trial court may exclude evidence of unpaid awards, pending claims and insurance as confusing or misleading. Aggregate punitive awards violate due process only if grossly excessive in light of punishment and deterrence goals, judged on reprehensibility, profit, financial position and criminal sanctions.
• Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Keeton (3rd District, 1996). Correspondence from other asbestos makers about known hazards was relevant to what Owens-Corning knew or should have known for a negligent failure-to-warn claim under Alabama law. A contributory-negligence issue was properly refused because the plaintiffs did not consciously appreciate the danger, and the company also failed to preserve the point.
• Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Wasiak (3rd District, 1996). Under Alabama law and due process, repetitive punitive awards in asbestos mass-tort litigation are not invalid merely because the defendant was punished before; the defendant must show the aggregate exceeds punishment commensurate with its entire misconduct, which Owens-Corning did not show.
• Keene Corp. v. Rogers (6th District, 1993). A judge need not be recused merely because his son-in-law, a salaried associate, joined the firm trying the case before him when there is no showing that the relative worked on the case or was substantially affected by its outcome. Erroneously admitted evidence that is merely cumulative of properly admitted evidence is harmless.
• Keene Corp. v. Gardner (5th District, 1992). A plaintiff's evidence of frequent, regular work near a defendant's asbestos product can support a finding of exposure, and a Texas court may not order mediation over a party's request for the statutory ten-day period to object.
• Waller v. Pittsburgh Corning Corp. (1991). Under Texas choice-of-law rules a foreign statute of repose is substantive law, so the Kansas ten-year repose statute applied. A later Kansas reviver amendment could not retroactively defeat the defendants' vested repose defense.
• Cimino v. Raymark Industries, Inc. (1990). A supplier of raw asbestos may not rely on intermediaries to warn users unless that reliance is reasonable, but plaintiffs must still prove exposure to that supplier's product to recover compensatory damages. In an asbestos personal injury case, prejudgment interest accrues six months after the last exposure to asbestos.
• Hardy v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1981). A federal court sitting in diversity predicted that Texas would adopt some form of Sindell market-share liability in asbestos cases, so market share discovery may lead to admissible evidence. The court also held that Borel precludes relitigating whether asbestos causes asbestosis and mesothelioma, and that the Borel duty-to-warn findings preclude warning and state-of-the-art evidence for insulation products.
• Migues v. Nicolet Industries, Inc. (1980). In a Texas-law diversity case involving an industry-wide asbestos tort among strictly liable producers, the non-settling defendant that went to trial receives a credit for the settlement amount rather than pro rata apportionment among settling defendants. An excessive verdict requires remittitur or a new trial.
• Mooney v. Fibreboard Corp. (1980). Offensive collateral estoppel may be used in an asbestos case, so defendants who had a full and fair opportunity to litigate the defect issue in earlier federal judgments are barred from relitigating it; federal law governs the preclusive effect of a prior federal diversity judgment, and Texas law would give the same result. The court also treated Borel as establishing as a matter of law that asbestos products are unreasonably dangerous.

Utah

• One Beacon American v. Huntsman Polymers (2012). Under the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws most significant relationship test, Texas law governed the CGL policy, and Texas law applies the exposure trigger theory to progressive asbestos-disease bodily injury claims.

Virginia

• Llt Management LLC v. Emory (2025). A Virginia federal court predicted that Virginia's five-year limitations period for injury to property applies to a New Jersey-law trade libel claim, while the two-year fraud period barred the fraud count because the alleged falsity was discoverable with reasonable diligence when the article was published. A scientific journal article's statements about what the authors knew of study subjects' exposures can be pleaded as verifiable statements of fact rather than protected opinion.
• Mullinex v. John Crane, Inc. (2020). Admiralty jurisdiction requires satisfying the location and connection tests under Grubart and Sisson, and alleged asbestos exposure from gaskets sold to the Navy and encountered on ships on navigable waters satisfies both. The Fourth Circuit's multifactor Oman test is not the standard.
• Hopeman Brothers, Inc. v. Continental Cas. Co. (2018). Under New York law, as stated in Viking Pump, non-cumulation clauses like these call for all-sums allocation and vertical exhaustion for long-tail claims. Such clauses reduce limits only to the extent the insured has already recovered for the same loss from prior insurance in the same coverage layer.
• Contreras v. Thor Norfolk Hotel, LLC (2003). Under Virginia law, an asbestos exposure claim requires a diagnosed asbestos-related disease, and emotional distress damages generally require physical injury. A claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress fails where the alleged conduct was not directed specifically at the plaintiff.