Loss of Consortium in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on loss of consortium: 241 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.

California

• Morton v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1st Appellate District, 2nd Division, 1995). The consumer expectations test for design defect can apply to asbestos insulation products. Evidence of what the scientific community knew about asbestos dangers is irrelevant under that test, which looks to ordinary consumers' expectations.
• Williamson v. Plant Insulation Co. (1st Appellate District, 3rd Division, 1994). Under former Probate Code section 573(c), pain and suffering damages and unincurred future economic losses do not survive a plaintiff's death before judgment, and neither section 669 nor nunc pro tunc entry applies when the plaintiff dies during trial before the case is ready for judgment. Under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.2, substantial evidence supported the jury's finding that the asbestosis claim was timely.
• Uram v. Abex Corp. (1st Appellate District, 1st Division, 1990). Under Code of Civil Procedure section 340.2, the limitations period runs from disability or from when the plaintiff knew or should have known asbestos exposure caused it, under the Jolly inquiry-notice standard. A loss of consortium claim based on asbestos exposure is governed by the one-year period of section 340(3), subject to the discovery rule.
• Kaminski v. Western MacArthur Co. (1st Appellate District, 5th Division, 1985). Under Ray v. Alad Corp., successor liability for a predecessor's defective products can extend to a corporation that took over a distributor, not only a manufacturer. The successor's acquisition need only have caused or contributed to the loss of the plaintiff's remedies against the predecessor.

Colorado

• Mestas v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2019). For purposes of a motion to dismiss, the court predicted that Colorado courts would not reject a take-home asbestos exposure claim simply because the plaintiff lacked direct contact with the defendants' products. Foreseeability, public policy and the alleged exposure to fibers from those products supported a duty of reasonable care.
• Fibreboard Corp. v. Fenton (1993). State-of-the-art evidence is admissible in strict liability failure-to-warn claims to show a product was not defective and unreasonably dangerous because the risk was not known or knowable. Under the pre-1986 set-off statute, settlement amounts must actually be collected before they can be set off against a joint judgment.

Connecticut

• Carlson v. CBS Corporation (2020). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show for each defendant that he was exposed to its product and that the product was a substantial factor in causing his injury. A loss of consortium claim under Connecticut law fails when the injured spouse's underlying claim fails.
• Bray v. Ingersoll-Rand Co. (2015). Under either the Connecticut Product Liability Act or general maritime law, a plaintiff must show with direct or circumstantial evidence that he was exposed to the particular defendant's product. Speculative equipment lists and inadmissible hearsay do not meet that burden. A loss of consortium claim under Connecticut law fails when the injured spouse's underlying claim fails.
• Kotecki v. Buffalo Pumps, Inc. (2009). A defendant may remove under the federal officer removal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1), by showing it acted under a federal officer, that its acts were causally tied to the government's directions, and that it has a colorable federal defense. The defense need not be proven on the merits at the removal stage.
• Bauer v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1984). The Connecticut products liability limitations statute (three years), amended to cover wrongful death, applies to products liability suits brought after October 1, 1979, so it governs this suit. A spouse cannot recover consortium damages for the death itself, but can recover for consortium loss caused by the decedent's injuries before he died.

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.
• Thorne v. Crane Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2022). Under Iowa law, a valve attached to real property remains an improvement after it is detached and refurbished, so the statute of repose bars claims based on exposure during that work. Iowa Code § 686B.7(5) also shields a defendant from liability for exposures from a product or component part made or sold by a third party.
• Knecht v. Ford Motor Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2020). A jury's damages verdict is not disturbed unless it results from passion, prejudice, partiality or corruption, or manifestly disregards the evidence or law, or is so grossly excessive that it shocks the court's conscience and sense of justice.
• Vocciante v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2020). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Minimal exposure, or mere presence of the product somewhere at the workplace, does not suffice without evidence of frequency, regularity or proximity.
• Knecht v. Ford Motor Co. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2019). When deciding whether a jury's compensatory damages verdict is excessive, a court must look at the total damages the jury found, not the defendant's smaller share based on its percentage of fault.
• 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.
• Thomas-Fish v. Avborne Accessory Group, Inc. (2019). Under federal pleading standards, a complaint that makes collective allegations against all defendants, without facts tying a particular defendant to the exposure or to successor liability, fails to state claims for strict liability, negligence, warranty, failure to warn, conspiracy, or punitive damages. Marketing an 'ultra-hazardous product' is not an independent cause of action under New Jersey law.
• Shaw v. Union Carbide Corp. (In re Asbestos Litigation) (2017). Under Connecticut law, a plaintiff must show the defendant's product was a substantial contributing factor to the injury, and even an unopposed summary judgment motion requires the court to find that the undisputed facts warrant judgment.
• Dana Companies, LLC v. Crawford (2011). A trial court must assess the adequacy of each damages award (survival pain and suffering, wrongful death) separately on the evidence for that claim, consistent with the jury instructions, and may not uphold an award by reference to other awards shared by the same beneficiaries.
• Price v. EI DuPont de Nemours & Co. (2011). Claims that an employer failed to prevent a worker from carrying asbestos home or failed to warn the family are nonfeasance, not misfeasance. Absent a special relationship between the employer and the spouse, the employer owes her no duty of care.
• Nutt v. AC & S., Inc. (1983). Under Delaware's workmen's compensation exclusivity, an employer's fraud or concealment before the injury is manifested is not separately actionable, and a wife's consortium claim against the employer is derivative and barred too. Wives' mental anguish claims for witnessing a spouse's illness or fearing future asbestos disease, without a traumatic event or physical manifestation, are not cognizable, and fraud must be pleaded with particularity.

Florida

• Ripple v. CBS Corporation (2024). A spouse who married the decedent after the injury but who outlived the decedent is a "surviving spouse" under Fla. Stat. 768.21(2), and the common law "marriage before injury" rule for loss of consortium does not bar that statutory wrongful death recovery.
• Ripple v. CBS Corporation (4th District, 2022). A spouse who married the decedent after the injury cannot recover consortium-type damages under section 768.21(2) of the Wrongful Death Act because the Act does not abrogate the common-law marriage-before-injury rule. Because the defendants successfully argued the wife was not a surviving spouse for that purpose, the adult children may recover under section 768.21(3).
• Bechtel Corporation v. Batchelor (3rd District, 2018). Premises liability requires control of the premises amounting to the ability to control access or exclude others, and a contractor's size, service contracts and insurance terms did not support an inference of such control. An adverse-inference instruction is unavailable as a discovery sanction without a prior court order that was violated.
• Kelly v. Georgia-Pacific, LLC (4th District, 2017). The Florida Wrongful Death Act does not clearly abrogate the common law rule that a spouse must be married to the injured person before the injury to recover consortium damages, so a spouse who married after the injury cannot recover consortium-type damages in a wrongful death suit. The rule applies even when the injury is latent.
• Dugas v. 3M Company (2016). Where the parties do not dispute that the decedent died of the injury at issue, the surviving spouse's loss of consortium claim must be brought through the personal representative's wrongful death action under Florida law, not as a separate individual claim. The wrongful death statute requires pleading only the identity and relationship of survivors, not their ages or dependency.
• Dugas v. 3M Company (2015). Florida's heightened asbestos pleading requirement (Fla. Stat. 774.205) conflicts with Federal Rule 8 and does not apply in federal court. Fraudulent concealment claims must be pleaded with particularity under Rule 9(b), and lumping defendants together fails that standard.
• Flomenhoft v. Georgia-Pacific LLC (2013). Under Florida law, a spouse can recover for loss of consortium only if married to the injured person at the time of the injury, and this rule applies to latent asbestos disease, so the marriage must predate the exposure.
• Honeywell International, Inc. v. Guilder (3rd District, 2009). A non-party's fault must go on the verdict form for apportionment when the defendant pleaded it and presented sufficient evidence. A child's parental consortium claim under section 768.0415 requires a negligent act on or after October 1, 1988, measured by the last exposure. Settlement proceeds are set off against the verdict.
• Honeywell International, Inc. v. Guilder (3rd District, 2009). A non-party's fault must be listed on the verdict form for apportionment once the defendant pleads it and presents sufficient evidence, and a child's parental consortium claim under section 768.0415 requires negligent acts on or after October 1, 1988, measured by the last exposure. Settlement proceeds are set off against the verdict in the same economic and noneconomic proportion as the jury's award.
• ACandS, Inc. v. Redd (3rd District, 1997). A spouse's loss of consortium claim is derivative and abates when the injured spouse's personal injury action abates on his death from the injuries, so recovery lies only under the Wrongful Death Act. Prejudicial testimony and an excessive verdict also warranted a mistrial or new trial.

Georgia

• Butler v. Union Carbide Corporation (2011). A trial court does not abuse its discretion under OCGA § 24-9-67.1 and Daubert by excluding an expert's 'any exposure above background' specific causation opinion as unreliable, and without that expert evidence a toxic tort plaintiff cannot show specific causation to survive summary judgment.
• Hoffman v. AC&S, Inc. (2001). A plaintiff in an asbestos case must present non-speculative evidence that the defendant's asbestos-containing product was used at the job site while the exposed person was nearby; testimony that a defendant's products were used at the site at some unspecified time during the 1960s is insufficient. An expert's general opinion that workers were exposed to asbestos products does not supply the missing link to a particular defendant.
• Kellogg Co. v. Pinkston (2001). An employee's damages claim against her employer for asbestos exposure arising out of employment is barred by the exclusivity provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act, so a court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over it. A default judgment on new claims also requires written notice to the defaulting party.

Illinois

• Ramirez v. Avon Products, Inc. (1st District, 5th Division, 2024). A trial court's decision to sever and stay third-party contribution claims, made by weighing competing factors and managing its docket, is reviewed for abuse of discretion. There is only a policy preference, not a rule, for trying contribution claims together with the underlying action.
• Jones v. Pneumo Abex LLC (5th District, 2021). A civil conspiracy based on circumstantial evidence must be proved by clear and convincing evidence of a knowing agreement. Evidence consistent with innocence, parallel conduct, or a conspiracy that ended before the plaintiff's exposure does not establish it.
• Jones v. Pneumo Abex LLC (2019). Where the full evidentiary record is already before the court and would leave nothing for a jury, the summary judgment standard is the same as for a directed verdict or judgment n.o.v., so precedent decided on judgment n.o.v. in asbestos civil conspiracy cases cannot be distinguished on that basis.
• Perez v. Air and Liquid Systems Corporation (2016). A surviving spouse may pursue a loss of consortium claim for injury to the marriage between the husband's injury and death as derivative of a Survival Act claim. Registering to do business and appointing an agent for service under Illinois law is not consent to general personal jurisdiction, and a global corporation is not "at home" in Illinois merely because it does business there.
• 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.
• Quirin v. Lorillard Tobacco Company (2015). A defendant owes no duty to a spouse for loss of consortium if the couple was not married when the asbestos exposure occurred, and insurance-policy 'continuous occurrence' cases do not create a continuous-exposure theory of liability.
• Smith v. Crane Co. (2014). Under Illinois appellate decisions (Monroe and Gillenwater), a defendant owes no duty to a spouse for loss of consortium if the couple was not married when the exposure or injury occurred, and the discovery rule does not change this.
• Gillenwater v. Honeywell Intern., Inc. (4th District, 2013). A civil conspiracy proved only by circumstantial evidence needs clear and convincing proof, and parallel conduct that has a reasonable nonconspiratorial explanation is not enough. A manufacturer owes no duty to a worker's future spouse for an asbestos exposure that occurred before the marriage, so her consortium claim fails.
• Stanley v. Ameren Illinois Co. (2013). An owner or general contractor owes a duty to a subcontractor's worker under the retained-control doctrine only if it controls the manner and methods of the work, not mere general oversight. Asbestos-containing thermal insulation installed in a new power plant is an improvement to real property, so the Illinois 10-year construction statute of repose bars claims over its installation.
• Rodarmel v. Pneumo Abex, LLC (4th District, 2011). In 1953-1956 an employer owed no duty to warn of asbestos carried home on work clothing because such injury was not reasonably foreseeable, and parallel conduct plus trade-group membership, shared directors, and suppression of non-significant animal data did not clearly and convincingly prove a conspiratorial agreement.
• Burgess v. Abex Corp. (4th District, 1999). A defendant who understands the general objectives of a conspiracy to conceal asbestos hazards, accepts them, and agrees explicitly or implicitly to further them is liable as a coconspirator. Plaintiffs must prove the conspiracy by clear and convincing evidence, reviewed under the manifest weight standard, and the jury's finding here had sufficient support.
• 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.
• 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.
• Owens Corning Fiberglas v. Ind. Comm'n (4th District, 1990). Under section 7 of the Workers' Occupational Diseases Act, a widow has an independent cause of action for death benefits even if her husband received disability benefits during his life. The date of death is the date of injury for determining the applicable statute and minimum rate, and an employer's reimbursement right under section 5(b) reaches only recoveries by the employee or his personal representative.
• Hobby v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp. (1983). Under Illinois law, survival-type and Family Expense Act claims are derivative and subject to the two-year personal injury limitations period running from the decedent's diagnosis, while loss of consortium in a wrongful death action is governed by the Wrongful Death Act's limitations period. The products liability repose period turns on when the disease manifested, a question for trial.

Indiana

• 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.