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.

Pennsylvania

• Gorton v. Eaton Corporation (2022). Under Pennsylvania's frequency, regularity and proximity test, which is less demanding in mesothelioma cases with direct evidence of exposure, a jury could find that work on asbestos-containing motor controllers was a substantial factor in causing the disease. The plaintiff did not invoke admiralty jurisdiction, so maritime law did not apply.
• Rogers v. AO Smith Corp. (2022). Under maritime law a plaintiff must show exposure to each defendant's asbestos-containing product that was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Under DeVries, the bare metal defense defeats a claim over asbestos insulation added to a turbine unless the turbine required that asbestos insulation.
• Data v. AO Smith Corporation (2021). Under Pennsylvania law a plaintiff must show frequent, regular and proximate exposure to the specific defendant's asbestos product, and mere presence of the product or de minimis exposure is not enough. Under maritime law the plaintiff must show exposure to the product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury, and the bare-metal defense is not available.
• Gay v. AO Smith Corp. (2021). 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 aboard the ship, is not enough.
• Gay v. AO Smith Corporation (2021). 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 general recollection of a product's name, its presence on a ship, or a generic expert report does not create a genuine dispute on exposure.
• Gay v. AO Smith Corporation (2021). Under Pennsylvania law (frequency, regularity and proximity) and maritime law (a high enough level of exposure), proof that a defendant's product was merely present at a worksite, with only de minimis exposure, does not show the product was a substantial factor in causing the disease.
• Gay v. AO Smith Corporation (2021). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the disease. A few minutes of exposure within a nearly fifty-year career, and inconsistent testimony about other work, did not meet that standard.
• Gay v. AO Smith Corporation (2021). Under Pennsylvania law, a plaintiff must show exposure to asbestos from the specific defendant's product with sufficient frequency, regularity and proximity; mere presence of the product or of asbestos at a workplace is not enough.
• Traser v. Sea Land Services (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2020). A dismissal order ends all proceedings and the district court relinquishes jurisdiction, so later orders in that case are void even if the court and parties mistakenly kept litigating; counsel's failure to notice the dismissal and timely appeal or seek relief does not make the order a nullity.
• Walker v. Blackmer Pump Co. (2019). A deceased witness's deposition is not admissible under the former-testimony hearsay exception against defendants who had no meaningful opportunity to cross-examine him. Maritime law governs shipboard Navy exposure, and under it the bare-metal defense turns on foreseeability, which makes circumstantial exposure evidence enough to reach a jury.
• Walker v. Viad Corp. (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, and the bare-metal defense is a foreseeability standard rather than a bright-line rule. A summary judgment movant may not raise a new argument and evidence for the first time in a reply brief.
• Schott v. Viad Corp. (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2014). Under maritime law a plaintiff must show exposure to asbestos in a product the defendant made or supplied, and expert speculation that the defendant probably supplied original or replacement parts is not enough. A manufacturer is not liable for asbestos parts it did not make or supply.
• Conner v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2012). Under maritime law, a manufacturer is not liable for harm caused by, and has no duty to warn of the hazards of, asbestos products that it did not manufacture or distribute, even if it was foreseeable that those products would be used with its own.
• Donn v. AW Chesterton Co., Inc. (2012). Federal war powers, procurement law and regulations do not occupy the field of state tort law on failure to warn of asbestos on Navy ships, and conflict with federal interests is addressed through the Boyle government contractor test rather than preemption. A failure-to-warn suit between private parties against Navy equipment suppliers is also not a non-justiciable political question.
• Conner v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2011). Maritime law governs asbestos product claims by sea-based Navy workers exposed to products made for use on vessels, because the locality and Sisson/Grubart connection tests are met. It does not govern claims by predominantly land-based Navy shipyard workers, where state law applies.
• Conner v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2011). Maritime law governs asbestos claims by sea-based Navy workers where the allegedly defective product was made for use on a vessel, because the Sisson/Grubart locality and connection tests are met. It does not govern claims by predominantly land-based Navy shipyard workers.
• Willis v. BW IP International Inc. (2011). To win summary judgment on the government contractor defense, a defendant must show no genuine factual dispute on all three Boyle elements, including that the government approved reasonably precise specifications reflecting considered judgment about warnings. Conflicting evidence on those points precludes summary judgment.
• Hagen v. Benjamin Foster Co. (2010). A defense is colorable for federal officer removal under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1) if the defendant identifies facts which, viewed in the light most favorable to it, would establish a complete defense at trial. The court need not weigh the evidence at the remand stage.
• Peter & Elpis Constantinides v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2010). Under Florida law a plaintiff must show that asbestos exposure from the defendant's product was a substantial contributing factor; a bare-metal defense not squarely argued before the magistrate panel is waived. Circumstantial and expert evidence of the defendant's valves aboard ship and work on their packing and gaskets can create a genuine issue on product identification.
• Kummer v. Allied Signal, Inc. (2008). Under general maritime law, using the Pennsylvania-based "regularity, frequency and proximity" test, direct evidence that the decedent worked on a defendant's asbestos-insulated turbine is enough to create a fact question on causation, and a design defect theory can survive summary judgment where the product was specified to use asbestos insulation.
• Chicano v. General Electric Company (2004). Under Pennsylvania law, a component manufacturer's duty to warn turns on factors including foreseeability and whether the part was designed for a particular finished product, so a turbine maker that knew its turbines would be insulated with asbestos may owe a duty to warn; the government contractor defense fails at summary judgment where a fact issue exists on conformity to specifications.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. US (1987). Under the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, an employee injured while engaged in maritime employment on navigable waters is covered by § 905(b), without a separate admiralty-jurisdiction nexus test. A private shipowner could therefore have been sued in negligence, so the United States can be liable to a manufacturer for contribution under the Federal Tort Claims Act.
• Colombo v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1984). Under the Federal Tort Claims Act the United States is treated like a private Pennsylvania shipyard employer, so the Pennsylvania Workmen's Compensation Act bars third-party contribution and indemnity tort claims against it, and Pennsylvania's dual capacity doctrine does not apply. The vessel-owner negligence claim under LHWCA section 5(b) survives because the state exclusivity bar does not apply to it, and the Tucker Act does not reach the implied-warranty claims.
• Christman v. Dravo Corp. (1983). Under 33 U.S.C. § 905(a), an employee or his representative may sue the employer at law only if the employer failed to secure payment of compensation; an employer that has secured insurance but contests a particular claim remains protected by the Act's exclusivity provision.

Rhode Island

• Stevens v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2017). Under an exception to the bare metal defense, a manufacturer may be liable where its product necessarily contained asbestos components essential to its function that would necessarily be replaced with other asbestos materials. Genuine factual disputes also barred summary judgment on the sophisticated user and government contractor defenses, and general maritime law does not bar loss of consortium damages.
• Sweredoski v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2013). A defendant asserting the government contractor defense must show, for design defect claims, that the government approved reasonably precise specifications, that the product conformed, and that the contractor warned the government of dangers it alone knew. Failure-to-warn claims require a parallel showing about government-approved warnings. Evidence on each element here raised triable issues of fact.
• Sweredoski v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2013). A valve maker can face strict liability, failure-to-warn and implied warranty claims where evidence shows it designed valves with asbestos packing and gaskets, knew they would be replaced with similar products, and sold such replacements. A civil conspiracy claim requires a valid underlying intentional tort, here intentional misrepresentation with reliance, which was not shown.

South Carolina

• 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 (2018). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product and that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Without specific causation expert testimony, the plaintiff must present evidence of the amount and duration of asbestos dust exposure, and general allegations of periodic exposure over many years 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).
• Haskins v. 3M Company (2017). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show the defendant's product was a substantial factor in causing the injury, assessed defendant by defendant. An expert opinion that any exposure contributing to cumulative dose is causative, without defendant-specific analysis, is inconsistent with that standard and excludable under Rule 403.
• 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.
• Metal Trades, Inc. v. US (1992). Asbestos is a hazardous waste under 10 U.S.C. § 7311, so the Navy must renegotiate a ship repair contract when it did not identify or quantify the asbestos. A contract standard item assuming all insulation is asbestos cannot override that statutory duty.

Texas

• 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.
• In re Global Sante FE Corporation (2008). The Jones Act does not preempt Chapter 90's expert-report requirements or its MDL pretrial consolidation, which are procedural and general in nature, but it does preempt the minimal-impairment requirement for silicosis claims and any higher causation standard than the federal one.
• Madden v. Able Supply Co. (2002). A corporation is a "person" under the federal officer removal statute, and a contractor that acted under Navy direction and raises a colorable military contractor defense may remove; the court may decline supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state-law claims and remand them.
• 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.
• Boyett v. Keene Corp. (1993). Under general maritime law, a non-settling defendant gets a settlement credit only if it proves the settlement and judgment cover common damages and that the settling party is a joint tortfeasor. A shipowner that is not negligent is not a joint tortfeasor with a negligent manufacturer, and a settling party cannot get indemnity for payments that did not discharge the manufacturer's liability.
• Castorina v. Lykes Bros. SS Co., Inc. (1984). Under post-1972 LHWCA law, the date of injury for asbestosis is the date of manifestation, so the claim is limited to a § 905(b) negligence action. A vessel owner that neither knew nor should have known of a cargo's hazard and complied with shipping regulations is not negligent, and the danger of the cargo itself does not make the vessel unseaworthy.

Utah

• Hipwell v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (2022). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's asbestos-associated product that was a substantial factor in causing the injury, and a boiler maker may owe a duty to warn under DeVries if it directed that asbestos be incorporated. The court treated the substantiality of exposure, the duty to warn, the government contractor defense and warning causation as disputed fact questions, with Utah's heeding presumption applying to the causation question.
• Hipwell v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp. (2022). A party seeking to exclude an entire category of evidence without specifying the particular items cannot show irrelevance or unfair prejudice, and whether an intervening cause was foreseeable is generally a jury question. The Navy's knowledge of asbestos hazards is relevant to the failure-to-warn claim and to the government contractor and DeVries defenses.

Virginia

• Gehant v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (2022). Under Air & Liquid Systems v. DeVries, a manufacturer's duty to warn depends on whether its product required incorporation of an asbestos-containing part, not merely heat insulation generally. Disputed facts on each DeVries prong, on the Boyle/Sawyer government contractor test, and on substantial-factor causation preclude summary judgment.
• Mullinex v. John Crane, Inc. (2022). When a defendant's answer neither admits nor denies material allegations of the complaint, those allegations are deemed admitted under Rule 8, and a plaintiff may obtain judgment on the pleadings on liability. Damages allegations are not admitted by a failure to deny.
• 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.
• Goodrich v. John Crane, Inc. (2018). A defense expert's opinion must rest on sufficient facts and data under Rule 702, and the defendant, as proponent, bears that burden. Studies quantifying relative asbestos fiber potency were excluded as unreliable, while converting fiber-release test results to time-weighted averages was allowed.
• Goodrich v. John Crane, Inc. (2018). A manufacturer cannot offer evidence of the Navy's knowledge or negligence as a superseding cause, because the Navy's failure to protect workers from asbestos was foreseeable. Evidence of the Navy's knowledge also is not state-of-the-art evidence, because it shows the hazards were known to experts and so supports a duty to warn.
• Exxon Mobil Corporation v. Minton (2013). Under the LHWCA's 1972 amendments, a shipowner's duty to intervene turns partly on whether it could rely on the shipyard, so evidence of the shipyard's knowledge and safety programs is relevant. Section 905(b) makes the negligence action against the vessel exclusive, which bars punitive damages.
• John Crane, Inc. v. Hardick (2012). In a general maritime survival action based on a seaman's death, courts look to the Jones Act, so the decedent seaman's estate may recover damages for pre-death pain and suffering. DOHSA does not bar this where the decedent was a seaman.
• John Crane, Inc. v. Hardick (2012). Nonpecuniary damages are not recoverable in a wrongful death action for a seaman, whether under DOHSA, the Jones Act, or general maritime law, and a Navy sailor who contributed to the function of vessels and had a substantial connection to them is a seaman. Arguments not briefed under Rule 5:27 are waived.
• John Crane, Inc. v. Jones (2007). General maritime law applies to a shipyard worker's asbestos injury when the location and connection tests are met, including where the manufacturer marketed its products for marine use. Virginia courts decide whether a verdict is excessive from the facts of each case, not by comparing it with verdicts in other cases.