Maritime Law and Navy Ships in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on maritime law: 344 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.

New York

• In re New York City Asbestos Litigation v. AC & S., Inc. (2009). A court may consolidate asbestos actions for joint trial where they share common questions of law and fact, and the plaintiffs need not share an identical work site, occupation or exposure period. Individual factors such as possible federal maritime law, a non-smoker plaintiff, or prejudice from trying living and deceased plaintiffs together can require separate trials.
• IN the Matter of United States Lines Inc. (2006). A bankruptcy court's rolling bar date order is interpreted as a claims-administration order rather than a statute of limitations, so the court may use New York's physical-manifestation approach to decide when injury manifested. Timeliness is a core issue decided without a jury, and the claimant bears the ultimate burden once the objector shows the claim is untimely.
• Dankenbrink v. Foster Wheeler (Matter of New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2006). Actions may be consolidated for joint trial under CPLR 602(a) where common questions predominate, and the Malcolm factors do not require an identical occupation, work-site or time of exposure. Cases implicating federal maritime law, and cases with materially different medical issues, may be tried separately to avoid jury confusion and prejudice.
• Nesbiet v. General Electric Co. (2005). A defendant seeking federal officer removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) must show a colorable federal defense, that it acted under federal direction, and a causal nexus; circumstantial evidence that the Navy controlled warnings on equipment can satisfy these without direct proof that the Navy forbade an asbestos warning.
• Penny v. United Fruit Co. (1994). New York's long-arm statute, CPLR 302(a)(3)(ii), requires that the defendant expect or reasonably expect its act to have consequences in New York. British shipowners could not foresee a British crewman later moving to New York and developing mesothelioma there. A parent is liable as employer under the Jones Act only if the subsidiary is its mere instrumentality, which requires actual domination.
• In re Waterman SS Corp. (1993). Seamen whom the debtor knew had manifested illness were entitled to actual personal notice of the bar date, while unidentifiable claimants could receive notice reasonable under the circumstances, such as publication. Claimants with no detectable signs of disease at the time of notice were not discharged.
• In re Prudential Lines, Inc. (1992). Under New York law, injury-in-fact during the policy period triggers coverage under a yearly P & I policy, and a policy deductible applies once per occurrence (the underlying event), not once per claim. Where medical evidence cannot apportion injury among triggered policies, each triggered policy is liable up to its limit.
• In re Waterman SS Corp. (1992). A claim arises when the acts giving rise to liability occur, so asbestos exposure before the petition creates a pre-petition claim. Discharge cannot be applied to known but unidentified future asbestos claimants who got only publication notice, because that violates Fifth Amendment due process.
• Swogger v. Waterman SS Corp. (1st Dept., 1989). When a seaman on commercial vessels is allegedly injured by asbestos exposure on the high seas, admiralty law rather than state law applies to the related third-party contribution and indemnity claims, so New York General Obligations Law § 15-108 does not bar contribution.
• Swogger v. Waterman SS Corp. (1987). Admiralty jurisdiction, including the maritime nexus requirement, extends to third-party claims against asbestos manufacturers, installers and shipowners where a seaman's asbestos exposure aboard ship caused his injury, even if the products were not designed for maritime use. Under admiralty law, contribution and indemnity are not barred by New York's General Obligations Law.

North Carolina

• Bantin v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2022). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product on a regular basis, over time and in proximity, so that the product was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Evidence that the defendant's valves were on the ship decades earlier, and that replacement parts were sold to a shipyard after the plaintiff left, is speculative.

Ohio

• Brucker v. CBS Corporation (2019). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury. The Sixth Circuit's bright-line bare-metal rule bars liability for asbestos-containing products attached to the defendant's product that the defendant neither made nor sold.
• Shaffer v. AW Chesterton Co. (9th Appellate District, 2019). A state court hearing Jones Act and unseaworthiness claims must apply federal maritime substantive law, not Ohio's asbestos causation statute and Schwartz; the Jones Act uses a relaxed 'however slight' causation standard. A trial court also may not grant summary judgment on a ground the movant did not raise.
• French v. AW Chesterton Company (2016). Contractors who build Navy equipment under close Navy direction can remove under the federal officer removal statute if they show a colorable government contractor defense. The 30-day removal clock starts when the plaintiff serves a paper showing the case is removable, and a defendant need not search its own records first.
• Jackson v. AC Product Liability Trust (2009). A verdict is against the weight of the evidence when there is no testimony showing the plaintiff's actual, substantial asbestos exposure on the defendant's vessel. Expert hypotheticals must rest on facts in the record, and a verdict that shocks the conscience is excessive.
• Wille v. AC Product Liability Trust (2007). Under Lindstrom v. Bartel, a plaintiff must show more than that an asbestos product was present at the workplace; evidence that asbestos was released into the air above background levels lets a jury decide whether exposure was a substantial factor. Seaman status under Chandris is a jury question on these facts.
• Bartel EX rel. Estate, Rich v. AC Prod. Liab. Tr. (2006). Asbestos exposure on navigable waters falls under admiralty jurisdiction and federal maritime law, but land-based exposure at a refinery fails the locality and maritime-connection tests and is governed by state law. A joined admiralty claim and non-admiralty claim may be tried to one jury.
• Lindstrom v. AC Products Liability Trust (2003). Under maritime product liability law, a plaintiff relying on circumstantial evidence must show substantial exposure to a particular defendant's asbestos-containing product for a substantial period. A general opinion that every asbestos exposure was a substantial factor does not meet that test, and a manufacturer is not liable for other makers' products attached to its equipment.

Oregon

• Long v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (2025). Federal officer removal requires a causal nexus between federally directed conduct and the plaintiff's claims, which is absent where the plaintiff disclaims exposure on Navy vessels. The saving to suitors clause bars a federal court from keeping a case removed from state court on admiralty jurisdiction alone.
• Long v. 3M Company (2024). Federal officer removal requires a causal nexus between the plaintiff's claims and the defendant's actions under federal direction, and a plaintiff's waiver of all claims from Navy and government-commissioned vessels removes that nexus. Admiralty jurisdiction over claims filed in state court does not by itself support removal.
• Coury v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2018). A settlement-related email from a plaintiff's side can be an "other paper" under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b)(3) that restarts the removal clock, and a plaintiff who has regained remand through a waiver of Navy-ship claims and then signals an intent to pursue them can be removed again under the federal officer removal statute.

Other federal courts

• Susino EX rel. Estate OF Decedent Susino v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2023). A remand motion is not a prohibited continuation of an action under the bankruptcy automatic stay. Maritime claims brought under the saving to suitors clause are removable only with an independent basis for federal jurisdiction, and a new ground for removal raised after the 30-day removal period is untimely.
• Air and Liquid Systems Corp. v. DeVries (2019). In maritime tort law, a product manufacturer has a duty to warn when its product requires incorporation of a part, it knows or has reason to know the integrated product is likely to be dangerous for its intended uses, and it has no reason to believe users will realize that danger. Mere foreseeability of use with another product is not enough, and the bare-metal defense is rejected.
• Devries v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2017). Under maritime law, a manufacturer of a bare-metal product may be held liable in negligence for injuries from later-added asbestos materials if the injuries were a reasonably foreseeable result of its conduct. A bright-line rule that bare-metal manufacturers are never liable does not apply.
• Boyd v. Warren Pumps, LLC (2016). A pump maker can be liable only for asbestos-containing products it manufactured or supplied. Circumstantial evidence that spare asbestos packing and gaskets were supplied with original pumps and disturbed during servicing while the plaintiff was aboard was enough to reach a jury, while evidence tying the makers to the replacement parts was not.
• McINDOE v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2016). Custom-built naval warships not distributed commercially are not "products" for strict products liability under maritime law, and a negligence claim requires proof of substantial exposure to the defendant's asbestos for a substantial period, which an "every exposure" expert opinion cannot replace.
• Stevens v. CBS Corp. (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation (NO. V)) (2014). An essential element of a maritime products liability claim is that the products to which the plaintiff was exposed actually contained asbestos, and speculative, internally inconsistent deposition testimony cannot create a genuine factual dispute on that point.
• Albina Engine & Machine v. Director, Owcp (2010). In LHWCA occupational disease cases with multiple employers, the §20(a) presumption must be invoked against each employer, and the evidence is analyzed sequentially starting with the last employer. The first employer in that sequence who fails to rebut the presumption, or is shown responsible by a preponderance, is liable.
• Lindstrom v. AC Product Liability Trust (2005). Under maritime products liability law, a plaintiff must show for each defendant that he was exposed to that defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury. A generic expert opinion that every asbestos exposure contributed does not meet this requirement. A manufacturer is not responsible for asbestos in other companies' packing or gaskets attached to its equipment.
• Bath Iron Works Corp. v. US Dept. of Labor (2003). Whether a claimant became aware, or with reasonable diligence should have become aware, of the link between employment, disease and death under 33 U.S.C. § 913(b)(2) is a fact-intensive question reviewed only for substantial evidence. If the ALJ found the claimant had no reason to suspect a link, no separate diligence findings are needed.
• Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock v. Stilley (2001). The Director's last maritime employer rule, which makes the last LHWCA-covered employer fully liable even when a later non-maritime employer also contributed to an occupational disease, is a reasonable construction of the Act and is constitutional under rational basis review.
• Norfolk Shipbuilding & Drydock Corp. v. Faulk (2000). Under the last employer rule, the employer in the last employment with exposure to injurious stimuli is liable for the full award, and it can rebut the statutory presumption only by showing the exposure had no potential to cause the disease or that a later employer exposed the worker. The court declined to require a minimum level of exposure.
• Blanding v. Director, Owcp (1999). An employer or carrier that fails to rebut the 33 U.S.C. § 920(b) presumption of notice is treated as having notice, so its failure to file the required § 930(a) report tolls the limitations period under § 930(f). The Board may not substitute its own factual findings for the ALJ's findings supported by substantial evidence.
• Brown & Root, Inc. v. Sain (1998). Under the LHWCA a latent-disease claimant becomes a "person entitled to compensation" when he learns of the disease and its disabling effect, not at exposure. For the section 33(g) forfeiture comparison, the gross amount of third-party settlements is compared with disability compensation only, excluding medical benefits.
• Holbrook v. Lykes Bros. SS Co., Inc. (1996). Under Rule 702's liberal standard, a court abuses its discretion by excluding a medical expert's testimony because the expert lacks the specialty the court considers most appropriate, and such exclusion is not harmless if the testimony bore on a critical issue such as diagnosis or causation.
• Cretan v. Bethlehem Steel Corp. (1993). Family members who settle third-party tort claims before a worker's death are persons "entitled to compensation" under both section 33(f) and section 33(g) of the LHWCA, so the set-off and written-approval requirements apply to them even though the death had not yet occurred.
• Johnstone v. American Oil Co. (1993). Under Louisiana's risk-utility test for a product that is unreasonably dangerous per se, a court may not grant JNOV by disregarding admitted utility evidence as irrelevant. The product's danger and utility are weighed as to society as a whole, and the evidence here left a jury question.
• Miller v. American President Lines, Ltd. (1993). Punitive damages are not available in a general maritime law unseaworthiness action for the wrongful death of a seaman. Indemnity and contribution among maritime tortfeasors, including product makers, are decided by comparative fault rather than the active-passive negligence rule.
• Cochran v. EI DuPont de Nemours (1991). Admiralty tort jurisdiction requires both navigable-waters locality and a nexus to traditional maritime activity, and a sailor's exposure to dust from a land-usable nonskid deck coating lacked that nexus. Under Virginia law the claim accrued when the damage occurred, and the 1985 asbestos-diagnosis accrual provision was not applied retroactively to a claim that accrued earlier.
• Vaughn v. Farrell Lines, Inc. (1991). Non-contractual maritime indemnity is available after a settlement when the indemnitor was notified and tendered the defense but refused to participate, if the indemnitee shows an indemnitor relationship, compulsion to settle, a reasonable settlement, and that the indemnitor's wrongdoing proximately caused the injury. The indemnitor may litigate its own wrongdoing and owes only for damage caused by its own products.
• Smith v. US (1989). The two-year limit in the Suits in Admiralty Act is jurisdictional and cannot be extended or tolled, and the Clarification Act bars suit by a seaman's survivor until the administrative claim is disallowed, so a premature first suit and a late second suit were both properly dismissed.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. US (1988). The LHWCA's express exclusion of federal employees (§ 903(b)) means § 905(b) gives no right of action against the United States for its own employees, so a third-party contribution claim under the FTCA fails. Asbestos injuries to shipyard workers also lack the significant relationship to traditional maritime activity needed for admiralty jurisdiction.
• Shuman v. United States (1985). Government decisions about whether and how to regulate, inspect, or warn about workplace safety at private contractors' shipyards, including the timing and content of safety standards, are discretionary functions protected from suit under 28 U.S.C. § 2680(a).
• Lowe v. Ingalls Shipbuilding, A Div. of Litton (1984). A declaratory judgment suit needs an independent basis of federal jurisdiction; realigning parties by their true interests defeated diversity, a federal defense under the LHWCA cannot support federal question jurisdiction, and admiralty jurisdiction requires a maritime situs and a relationship to traditional maritime activity, which the pleadings did not show.
• Bouvier v. Krenz (1983). A shipyard rigger whose work on many different vessels was not permanent or substantial, and who was shore-based and never went to sea, is not a Jones Act seaman as a matter of law.
• Vaughan v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1981). Under the Executive Jet criteria admiralty jurisdiction is present over asbestos product claims by a Navy boiler tender, and the limitation period is governed by the doctrine of laches rather than a strict application of the state statute of limitations.
• White v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1981). Asbestos products liability claims by shipyard workers satisfy the Executive Jet locality and maritime-nexus tests when the products were designed, advertised and marketed as maritime asbestos products, so admiralty jurisdiction applies. Laches, not the state statute of limitations, then governs timeliness.

Pennsylvania

• Gorton v. Warren Pumps, LLC (2023). The federal common-law government contractor defense from Boyle applies in a case governed by maritime law. It bars design and failure-to-warn claims where the Navy approved reasonably precise specifications, the equipment conformed, and the contractor did not know more about the hazard than the Navy did.
• Pine v. John Crane, Inc. (2023). Under maritime law, a plaintiff needs evidence of exposure to the defendant's product high enough to make substantial-factor causation more than conjectural, and coworker testimony that only the defendant's gaskets were used can meet that. Survival, non-pecuniary and punitive damages are not available under general maritime law against a non-employer manufacturer in a seaman's death claim.
• Warrington v. 3M Company (2023). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury. A bare-metal failure-to-warn claim also requires proof under DeVries that the manufacturer directed or required incorporation of the asbestos part and knew or had reason to know it was dangerous.