Product Identification in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on product identification: 1,060 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.

Wisconsin

• Spychalla v. Boeing Aerospace Operations Inc. (2015). The court did not decide whether Wisconsin recognizes the bare metal defense. Even assuming it does, it would not apply to makers of completed aircraft and engines when unrebutted expert evidence showed they specified asbestos-containing replacement parts. Issues already decided by the MDL court on product identification and causation would not be reopened.
• Estate OF Gregovich v. Auer Steel & Heating Supply (1st District, 2014). A circuit court erroneously exercises its discretion by disregarding summary-judgment submissions for page-limit or lateness violations without a showing of egregious conduct or bad faith. A plaintiff must produce evidence that a defendant's product actually contained asbestos.
• Miller v. American Art Clay Co. Inc. (2014). Under Wisconsin law a plaintiff must show a defendant's product was a substantial factor in causing the injury. Where the evidence fits asbestos-free products as well as the asbestos-containing one, causation is only speculation and summary judgment is proper.
• Calewarts v. CR Meyer and Sons Company (3rd District, 2012). A merged successor to a nonemployer building owner can be sued for the owner's pre-merger safe-place liability under the dual persona doctrine despite workers' compensation exclusivity. A plaintiff opposing summary judgment need only present evidence of potential asbestos exposure, from which a jury may infer exposure.
• Risse v. Building Services Industrial Supply, Inc. (1st District, 2012). To survive summary judgment, a plaintiff must produce evidence showing the worker was probably exposed to the defendant's asbestos-containing product and that the exposure was a substantial factor in the illness; evidence leaving exposure to speculation or conjecture is not enough.
• Singer v. Pneumo Abex, LLC. (1st District, 2012). In negligence and strict products liability claims, a plaintiff must offer credible evidence from which a reasonable person could infer exposure to the defendant's product; a mere possibility of causation, resting on piled-up inferences, does not defeat summary judgment.
• Zielinski v. AP Green Indus., Inc. (2003). Summary judgment is improper where the evidence supports a reasonable inference that the defendant's asbestos-containing product was used at the workplace and the plaintiff worked with it. The court declined to adopt a bright-line causation rule and applied Wisconsin's substantial-factor test to the totality of the circumstances.
• Anderson v. Combustion Engineering, Inc. (2002). A jury verdict stands if any credible evidence supports it, and the jury may draw reasonable inferences from expert and lay testimony about exposure without expert proof tracing specific fibers to one defendant. A jury's apportionment of fault is not disturbed unless the percentages are grossly disproportionate or the proof so lacking that the verdict is speculation.

Wyoming

• Johnson v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. Prod. Liab. Trust (2014). In an asbestos case, a plaintiff must offer competent evidence that the defendant's product or conduct was a substantial factor in causing the harm. Witnesses who admit in deposition that they lack personal knowledge of what the insulation contained, or who made it, cannot supply that evidence. The court also applied Pennsylvania's 12-year construction statute of repose, in the alternative, to Bechtel, CBS and GE.
• Johnson v. Allis-Chalmers Corporation Product Liability Trust (2014). Under the substantial-factor causation test, a plaintiff must have admissible, personal-knowledge evidence linking a particular defendant's asbestos to the plaintiff's exposure. Witnesses' deposition testimony that contradicts their earlier affidavits is treated as more reliable at summary judgment, and a real-property-improvement statute of repose can bar claims over permanent improvements.