Premises Owner Liability in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on premises owner liability to contractors' workers or visitors: 231 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.

Louisiana

• Graves v. Riverwood International Corp. (2nd Circuit, 2007). A worker's tort claim against his employer vests when significant asbestos exposures occur. Exposures before Louisiana's 1952 occupational disease coverage therefore left the claim outside the later workers' compensation scheme. A JNOV or new trial is denied where reasonable minds could differ and the verdict is supportable by a fair interpretation of the evidence.
• Palermo v. Port of New Orleans (4th Circuit, 2007). A port authority that leases wharves to stevedores owes no duty to their employees to provide a safe workplace unless the premises are defective and it knew or should have known of the defect. Ship repairers are liable only if the evidence shows their work was a substantial factor in the plaintiff's asbestos exposure.
• Terrance v. Dow Chemical Company (1st Circuit, 2007). Mesothelioma was not a compensable occupational disease under the pre-1975 Louisiana workers' compensation statute, so the tort claim against a premises owner was not barred. A defendant seeking a credit for a settling party's fault must prove that party's fault at trial; settlement documents are not admissible to prove it.
• Palermo v. Port of New Orleans (4th Circuit, 2006). A port authority that leased its wharves to stevedores owed no duty to their employees absent a known defect in the premises. A plaintiff must also show that a particular defendant's work was a substantial factor in the exposure; the generally substantial exposure from handling asbestos cargo does not supply that proof.
• Thomas v. AP Green Industries, Inc. (4th Circuit, 2006). A premises owner can be directly liable for its own negligence toward a contractor's employee even if the independent contractor defense bars vicarious liability, and the substantial contributing factor test for causation applies to premises owners as well as product defendants.
• Graves v. Riverwood Intern. Corp. (2nd Circuit, 2004). A contract benefiting a third party must clearly stipulate that benefit, and a stipulation pour autrui is never presumed. A parent corporation may be liable for undertaking a duty of safety owed by its subsidiary, and under Louisiana fact pleading the petition's allegations of an assumed duty were sufficient.
• Roberts v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1st Circuit, 2004). A trial court cannot substantively change a final judgment by a second judgment without a proper procedure, so the change is an absolute nullity. A premises owner that knew or should have known asbestos exposure caused serious lung disease and cancer is liable for mesothelioma even without specific knowledge of that disease.
• Faulkner v. McCarty Corp. (4th Circuit, 2003). A port authority that leased warehouses to stevedores with complete control, and that did not know asbestos was stored there, owed no duty under duty-risk analysis or La. R.S. 9:3221 and was not strictly liable under La. C.C. arts. 2317 and 2322. The Louisiana Supreme Court has rejected the public duty doctrine.
• Jefferson v. Cooper/T. Smith Corp. (4th Circuit, 2003). On de novo review of summary judgment, a premises owner owes a duty of reasonable care to persons on its premises, and genuine factual disputes about what it knew or should have known about asbestos dangers and facility adequacy precluded summary judgment.
• Emery v. Owens-Corporation (1st Circuit, 2001). Where the substantial injury-producing asbestos exposures occurred before Louisiana's comparative fault law took effect, pre-comparative-fault virile share principles apply rather than jury-assigned percentages. Under the pre-1976 statutes, a premises owner was not a statutory employer entitled to tort immunity, and the statutory employer question is for the court rather than the jury.

Maine

• In re All Maine Asbestos Litigation (1986). Following First Circuit precedent, a vessel-owner claim under LHWCA section 905(b) reaches only maritime torts, and asbestos injuries to shipyard workers are not maritime torts. Claims against the United States under the FTCA are barred by the discretionary function exception where the government made policy-based safety decisions, but not where facts are disputed about whether Navy personnel had discretion.

Maryland

• Burns v. Bechtel Corp. (2013). Under CJ § 5-108, the exception for those in actual possession and control of the property requires a proprietary interest, not just control of a construction project. Asbestos dust shed during installation is not excluded from 'improvements' protected by repose; the (d)(2)(ii) exception applies only to manufacturers and suppliers.
• Wajer v. Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (2004). A premises owner that hires independent contractors is not liable to a contractor's employee under the retained-control rule (§ 414) or the safe-workplace rule (§ 343) unless it controlled the operative details of the very work that caused the injury; asbestos products the contractors brought in were their own work product, not a preexisting latent condition.

Massachusetts

• Stearns v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (2018). The Massachusetts six-year statute of repose for improvements to real property does not bar asbestos claims against a contractor like GE, given the long latency of asbestos disease, known risks and GE's continuing control of the site. A premises owner is not liable to an independent contractor's employee for asbestos hazards the contractor's own work created, or for a contractor's negligence where the owner kept no real control over the work.
• Stearns v. Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (2018). The six-year statute of repose in G. L. c. 260, § 2B completely eliminates tort claims arising from deficiency or neglect in the design, planning, construction or administration of an improvement to real property once the period has run, with no exception for long-latency diseases or for a defendant with knowing control of the injurious instrumentality.

Michigan

• In re Certified Question From the Fourteenth District Court OF Appeals OF Texas (2007). Under Michigan law, a duty depends on the parties' relationship, foreseeability, the burden on the defendant and the nature of the risk. A property owner owes no duty to a person who was never on or near its property to protect her from asbestos fibers carried home on a household member's work clothes, where there was no further relationship.

Minnesota

• Anderson v. AH Bennett Company (2025). Under Minnesota's workers' compensation law, the exclusivity provision applies if the employee was last exposed to the occupational disease hazard in a significant way while employed by the defendant, even if the plaintiff only pursues exposures from a period when he was not employed there. Whether that last significant exposure occurred is a fact question.

Montana

• Wells v. BNSF Ry. Co. (2024). Federal law (ICCTA) did not expressly or impliedly preempt Montana strict liability claims for an abnormally dangerous activity based on asbestos-contaminated vermiculite in a railyard, and the common carrier exception did not cover the railroad's handling of asbestos outside its duties as a carrier. A party cannot raise grounds in a post-verdict Rule 50(b) motion that it did not raise before the verdict.

Nevada

• Knutson v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (2005). A defendant claiming fraudulent joinder bears a heavy burden to show the plaintiff obviously cannot state a claim against the non-diverse defendant under well-settled state law, and doubts or unsettled state law are resolved in favor of remand. A plaintiff's opposition brief that adds no new facts or law does not start a new removal period under 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b).

New Jersey

• Barile v. 3M Company, Inc. (2013). A builder of a custom boiler that is an improvement to real property is protected by the ten-year statute of repose, including for follow-up repairs and for strict liability claims based on standard asbestos insulation made by others. A landowner owes no duty to protect an independent contractor's workers from hazards inherent in the contracted work unless it controls the means and methods of that work.
• Brust v. Acf Industries, LLC (2011). Under the well-pleaded complaint rule, a state common-law premises liability claim against a bi-state entity does not raise a federal question merely because the entity may assert a defense that requires interpreting its interstate compact.
• Olivo v. Owens-Illinois, Inc. (2006). A landowner that owes a duty to workers on its premises for the foreseeable risk of asbestos exposure also owes a derivative duty to a spouse who handles the worker's contaminated work clothing, unless the hazard-incident-to-the-work exception for independent contractors' employees means no duty is owed to the worker.
• Olivo v. Exxon Mobil Corporation (2005). Under New Jersey's fairness-and-foreseeability duty analysis, a landowner that knew of asbestos hazards owed a duty to a worker's spouse who predictably came into contact with his asbestos-laden work clothes at home. The court limited the duty to the spouse and declined to extend it to unpredictable contacts such as car pool members.

New York

• Hildebrand v. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (Matter of New York City Asbestos Litig.) (1st Dept., 2021). Issues of fact on whether the Port Authority had authority to control the activity that caused the injury, here the application of asbestos-containing materials, precluded summary judgment. A plaintiff opposing summary judgment may show an acceptable excuse for not tendering evidence in admissible form, and inadmissible evidence need not be the sole basis for finding fact issues.
• Smith v. AC Light. & Elec. Supplies, LLC (2021). Under Labor Law § 200 and common-law negligence, a premises owner or contractor owes a duty to provide a safe workplace only if it had authority to supervise or control the activity causing the injury; evidence that it oversaw the work raises a fact issue.
• Mauro v. Consolidated Edison of New York (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2020). Under Labor Law § 200, liability may attach to a party that controls the work through specifications directing the means and methods of using asbestos-containing products, monitors compliance, and can stop work; conflicting testimony on control raises credibility issues that preclude summary judgment.
• Epstein v. Exxon Mobil Corp. (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2019). Under New York choice-of-law rules, a causation standard is a conduct-regulating rule governed by the law of the place of the tort. A summary judgment movant must make its own prima facie showing and cannot rely on gaps in the plaintiff's proof or on expert evidence first submitted in reply.
• Epstein v. Port Authority of New York & New Jersey (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2019). A premises owner is liable under Labor Law § 200 and common law negligence only if it controlled the means and methods of the work, and conflicting testimony and evidence of that control raises fact issues. An owner outside the manufacturing, selling or distribution chain cannot be held strictly liable for products.
• Ombramonti v. Morse Diesel (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2019). A defendant cannot win summary judgment by pointing to gaps in the plaintiff's proof; plaintiff need only show facts and conditions from which the defendant's liability may be reasonably inferred, and conflicting testimony raises credibility issues for a jury.
• Brown v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (Matter of New York City Asbestos Litigation) (1st Dept., 2019). Where the jury's share of fault assigned to a nonparty was most likely attributed to that party as the decedent's employer, who could not be sued directly because of a grave injury under the Workers' Compensation Law, CPLR 1602(4) lets that share be added to the defendant's, so the defendant is not protected by the 50% limit on its own share. A defendant that wants to limit that share must object to the verdict sheet and charges and propose a clarifying question.
• Brown v. Consolidated Edison Co. of New York (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2017). Where a non-party employer appears on the verdict sheet only as a manufacturer that failed to warn, and the plaintiff was exposed to its products before working for it, the workers' compensation bar does not remove it from CPLR article 16 apportionment, so its share is not shifted to a co-defendant.
• Seabridge v. Kelsey-Hayes Co. (Albany, 2017). In an asbestos case, a plaintiff opposing summary judgment need not show the precise cause of the injury, only facts and conditions from which the defendant's liability may be reasonably inferred.
• In re Johns-Manville Corp. (2016). A person exposed to asbestos before the debtor's petition date holds a prepetition claim even if disease appears later. Such a claim against a Manville subsidiary is discharged by that subsidiary's plan and is also channeled to the Manville Trust under the Manville injunction, and notice by publication plus a future claims representative satisfied due process.
• North v. National Grid Generation (IN the Matter of New York City Asbestos Litig.) (1st Dept., 2016). An owner that specifies the means and methods of work and coordinates the trades can be liable under Labor Law § 200, and a pre-1996 indemnification clause covering all losses arising from the work can require the contractor to indemnify the owner, including fees for defending the plaintiff's action but not for prosecuting the indemnity claim.
• Brown v. Bell & Gossett Co. (2015). An owner is not liable under Labor Law § 200 for work-method hazards unless it supervised or controlled the injury-producing work. Specifications requiring asbestos-containing materials did not by themselves show such control or create a dangerous condition.
• Storey v. Morse Diesel (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2015). A general contractor seeking summary judgment on Labor Law § 200 and negligence claims must first establish prima facie that it did not create or have notice of the dangerous condition and lacked supervision and control; where it does not, the motion fails.
• Brown v. Bell & Gossett Co. (2014). Under Labor Law § 200, a premises owner is not liable for injuries from the method and manner of a contractor's work unless it actually supervised or controlled that work. General supervision, inspection, and contract specifications that listed asbestos materials are not enough.
• Houston v. AO Smith Corp. (2014). A general contractor is not liable under Labor Law § 200 for asbestos exposure where it only exercised general supervisory authority over subcontractors and there was no evidence it knew the swept debris contained asbestos or was hazardous.
• Houston v. Beazer E., Inc. (2014). To hold a general contractor liable under Labor Law § 200 or common-law negligence, plaintiffs must show it controlled the activity causing the injury or had actual or constructive notice of the hazardous condition; general supervisory authority and speculative evidence are not enough.
• Shtockhammer v. 29th Street Hotel Acquisition, LLC (2014). On a motion to dismiss, a complaint and supporting affidavit alleging asbestos exposure at a property state premises liability and negligence claims against the buyer, and the purchase agreement's transfer of the property's liabilities, including asbestos, did not conclusively defeat them. Veil-piercing claims against related entities may proceed to discovery.
• Smith v. 3M Company (2014). Under Labor Law § 200 and the common law, a premises owner that supplied a worker with asbestos-insulated wire and the tools to strip it raises a triable issue of fact on whether it was positioned to prevent the injury, even if it did not instruct how to cut the wire.
• Brown v. Bell & Gosset Co. (2013). A Labor Law § 200 claim against a site owner requires authority to control the activity causing the injury; testimony that the owner or general contractor selected the asbestos insulation the worker installed is enough to raise a fact issue on summary judgment.
• Brown v. Bell & Gossett Co. (2013). A premises owner faces Labor Law § 200 liability if it had authority to control the activity causing the injury, and testimony that it chose the insulation materials and enforced specifications that barred dust control raises a fact issue on that control.
• Crane v. Crane Co. (2013). A premises owner may be liable under Labor Law § 200 and the common law where inferences can be drawn that it exercised supervision and control over the materials and the subcontractor workers' use of them; reargument is limited to matters of fact or law overlooked or misapprehended.
• Frieder v. Long Is. RR (2013). A landowner that controls the premises and its employees can owe a duty of care to a diner worker on its property exposed to asbestos dust carried on its employees' work clothes, and circumstantial evidence of exposure can raise a question of fact defeating summary judgment.
• McCloskey v. AO Smith Water Prod. Co. (2013). A plaintiff's deposition testimony that a defendant's workers created asbestos dust near him is enough to raise a fact issue and defeat summary judgment. Weighing its credibility is for the jury, not the court on a summary judgment motion.
• Crane v. AO Smith Water Products Co. (2012). An owner is liable under Labor Law § 200 only if it had authority to control the injury-producing work or had notice of the unsafe condition, and general supervisory authority alone is not enough. The court found the contracts and later safety measures raised an inference that LILCO controlled the materials used.
• Konstantin v. 630 Third Ave. Assoc. (2012). A verdict is set aside as a matter of law only if no valid line of reasoning could support it, and a pain and suffering award is reduced under CPLR 5501(c) when it deviates materially from reasonable compensation. Expert causation opinions need only a proper foundation in generally accepted methods, not studies on identical circumstances.
• Perez v. Port Auth. of NY & NJ (2012). On a CPLR 3211(a)(7) motion, a Labor Law § 200 claim survives if the owner may have supervised or controlled the work or had notice of the unsafe condition, and a real factual dispute about asbestos exposure bars dismissal.
• Konstantin v. 630 Third Ave. Assocs. (2011). Workers' compensation exclusivity bars an employee's claims only for exposure arising out of and in the course of employment with that defendant, not for later exposure as an employee of a different employer. Whether a general contractor controlled the work site is a fact question that can defeat summary judgment.