Punitive Damages in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on punitive or exemplary damages: 291 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.

Maryland

• Rockman v. Union Carbide Corp. (2017). Where a plaintiff offers no opposition and no supporting evidence, Maryland law bars these claims: warranty claims accrue on tender of delivery, market share liability is not recognized, and punitive damages require clear and convincing proof of actual malice.
• Haney v. 3M Company (2015). Under Maryland's frequency, regularity and proximity test for bystander asbestos exposure, a worker who passed through areas where panels were installed eight to ten times for three to five minutes each time did not show substantial-factor causation. Claims a plaintiff does not defend in response to a summary judgment motion are treated as abandoned.
• Sherin v. John Crane-Houdaille, Inc. (2014). Under Maryland law, a supplier owes no duty to warn unless a better warning could feasibly and effectively have prevented the harm, and the plaintiff must offer evidence that improved warnings to intermediaries would have prevented the take-home exposure. Testimony about the manufacturer name on a product container is circumstantial evidence of the manufacturer, not hearsay.
• Royal Ins. Co. of America v. Miles & Stockbridge (2001). Expert testimony is required to show that a lawyer's settlement advice breached the standard of care, and a claimant whose own experts disclaim a breach cannot show negligence as a matter of law. A malpractice claimant must also prove that the lawyer's alleged error caused harm.
• Owens Corning v. Bauman (1999). A cause of action for a latent asbestos-related disease such as mesothelioma "arises" under the noneconomic damages cap when the disease comes into existence, not when it is diagnosed or manifests symptoms. When that date is disputed, Article 23 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights requires the jury to decide it, upon a proper request.
• ACandS Inc. v. Asner (1996). Threshold limit value evidence is relevant state of the art evidence in negligence and strict liability failure-to-warn claims, and evidence of exposure to non-parties' asbestos products is not per se irrelevant. Punitive damages require clear and convincing proof that the defendant, when the product left its control, actually knew of the danger to bystanders and consciously disregarded it.
• Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Baltimore City (1996). To recover punitive damages in a non-intentional product case, the plaintiff must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant actually knew, before the product left its control, that it posed a serious risk to the class of persons at issue; knowledge of danger to asbestos trade workers does not show knowledge of danger to ordinary building users.
• Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. v. Garrett (1996). A bystander's proof of substantial-factor causation is judged by the frequency, regularity and proximity of exposure to the defendant's product. Punitive damages in a products case require clear and convincing evidence of actual knowledge of the defect and a bad-faith decision to market the product in conscious disregard of the danger. A defendant found not liable at trial is not a joint tort-feasor, so no settlement offset applies.
• ACandS, Inc. v. Asner (1995). A punitive damages claim in a products liability case goes to the jury if the plaintiff offers evidence that could clearly and convincingly show actual malice (actual knowledge of the hazard and conscious disregard of it). Exposure to the products of non-party companies is irrelevant to whether a defendant's product was a substantial factor. A spouse's death ends the measure of consortium damages but not the consortium claim, and solatium damages may also be recovered.
• ACandS, Inc. v. Godwin (1995). A bystander shows substantial-factor causation for a defendant's asbestos product through the frequency, regularity and proximity of exposure, and punitive damages in a products case require clear and convincing proof of actual knowledge of the defect and a deliberate, bad-faith disregard of consumer safety. Negligence, even gross negligence, is not enough.
• US Gypsum v. Baltimore (1994). A building owner seeking asbestos removal costs may sue in tort because the defect creates a substantial risk of personal injury, and a post-sale duty to warn applies. Punitive damages require clear and convincing proof that the defendant actually knew, at the time of sale, that its product endangered ordinary building users.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Balbos (1992). A nonmanufacturing supplier-installer of asbestos is held to a 'should have known' standard in a negligent failure-to-warn claim. A bystander plaintiff must show frequent exposure near regularly used products of the particular defendant to prove substantial-factor causation, and 'fiber drift' alone is not enough. A sophisticated-user instruction requires evidence that the supplier reasonably relied on the intermediary, and punitive damages require actual malice shown by clear and convincing evidence.
• Owens-Illinois, Inc. v. Armstrong (1992). A trial judge may exclude a document that technically qualifies as a business record if the objecting party shows it lacks the usual reliability, though a heavy burden applies. A cause of action arises under the noneconomic damages cap when it comes into existence, not when it is discovered. The contribution statute does not reduce a nonsettling defendant's liability by another defendant's punitive damages settlement.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. Balbos (1990). A jury's negligence verdict was upheld despite arguably inconsistent findings, and a defendant's failure to warn was a cause-in-fact of harm to bystander shipyard workers, with expert evidence of asbestos fibers drifting supporting the inference that bystanders were exposed. Suppliers could not rely on the employer as a sophisticated purchaser. Punitive damages require direct evidence of substantial knowledge that the product itself was dangerous and gross indifference to that danger.

Massachusetts

• Cook v. Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation (2023). Asbestos exposure claims arising from repair and maintenance aboard a Navy ship on navigable waters fall within admiralty jurisdiction, so substantive maritime law applies, with state law only supplementing where maritime law is silent. General maritime law does not bar loss of consortium, punitive or survival damages against a manufacturer in such a case.
• Pritt v. John Crane, Inc. (2023). Where a product manufacturer that was not the seaman's employer is sued over an indivisible injury from asbestos exposure on the high seas and in territorial waters, neither the Jones Act nor DOHSA applies. General maritime law then permits punitive damages, loss of consortium damages and survival remedies, so an amendment seeking them is not futile.
• Burleigh v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2018). Under the Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws §§ 145-146, the law of the place of injury applies unless another state has a more significant relationship. Maine, where the decedent lived, worked and was exposed, had that relationship on the issues decided, even though the defendant's conduct occurred in 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.

Mississippi

• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair Inc. (2021). Under Mississippi's asbestos causation test (exposure to a particular product, regularly, over an extended time, and in proximity), minimal exposure to a defendant's products and expert opinions that do not tie the disease to that defendant's products cannot create a genuine issue of fact. Without a valid compensatory claim, punitive damages claims also fail.
• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair Inc. (2021). Under Mississippi's frequency, regularity and proximity test with product identification, a plaintiff's twenty to twenty-five countable contacts with a defendant's products and isolated later instances do not raise a genuine issue on causation; without a viable underlying claim, punitive damages fail too.
• Union Carbide Corporation v. Nix (2014). A manufacturer's compliance with the OSHA warning wording does not make its warning adequate as a matter of law, and expert testimony is not required where a warning's adequacy is within a layperson's understanding. A judge's comments suggesting the compensatory award was too low can taint a punitive award submitted right after.

Missouri

• Guthe v. Johnson & Johnson (2024). A petition must at least describe the type of product the decedent was exposed to and allege that the defendant made or distributed it; Missouri law recognizes no standalone products-liability tort of willful and wanton misconduct, though the allegations may be read as a punitive damages request.
• Ingham v. Johnson & Johnson (Eastern District, 2nd Division, 2020). Specific personal jurisdiction must be shown separately for each non-resident plaintiff's claim, and a parent corporation's jurisdictional contacts can be attributed to it from a subsidiary only through proven agency or alter ego. Expert testimony was admissible under section 490.065, and the evidence supported submitting causation and punitive damages to the jury.
• Poage v. Crane Co. (Eastern District, 2nd Division, 2017). A plaintiff can show a valve maker's product was a substantial factor in causing mesothelioma through a co-worker's testimony about shared work on the valves, and the maker owes a duty to warn and to design safely where its valves required or specified asbestos gaskets and packing. Missouri's statutory cap on punitive damages does not apply to this wrongful death action, and a defendant's setoff under § 537.060 is limited to settlements actually reached, not possible future asbestos trust recoveries.
• Hoskins v. Business Men's Assurance (Western District, 2003). Punitive damages were properly submitted where clear and convincing evidence showed the manufacturer knew its sprayed asbestos product was dangerous to those who would later remove it. Prejudgment interest under section 408.040.2 cannot be awarded on punitive damages because its purposes are compensation and encouraging settlement, not punishment.
• Hoskins v. Business Men's Assur. (2002). A statute giving the state a lien on half of a final punitive damages judgment does not violate the excessive fines clause, due process or the takings clauses, because the state has no prosecutorial power, its share derives from the private judgment, and it takes nothing from defendants.
• Clayton Center Assoc. v. WR Grace & Co. (Eastern District, 2nd Division, 1993). A building owner may recover in strict liability and negligence for asbestos contamination of the building from a fireproofing product. A claim accrues when asbestos fibers are released and a substantial, unreasonable risk of harm can be ascertained, and the economic loss doctrine does not bar recovery for damage to property other than the product itself.

Montana

• Gallegos v. BNSF Railway Company (2024). A renewed motion asking the court to revisit an interlocutory ruling must comply with the local rule on reconsideration. Where evidence on negligence and punitive damages overlaps substantially, they are normally tried together, with only the amount of punitive damages bifurcated.

New Jersey

• Losurdo v. Viacomcbs Inc. (2025). Under maritime law and DeVries, a manufacturer's duty to warn turns on whether it directed incorporation of asbestos parts, knew the integrated product was dangerous, and had no reason to believe the sailors using it would know of the danger. Under Miles, punitive and loss-of-consortium damages are not available in a maritime wrongful death action.
• Condon v. Advance Thermal Hydronics, Inc. (2018). Under the frequency, regularity and proximity test, a plaintiff must present evidence from which a jury could find it more likely than not that he was exposed to the defendant's product; speculation that a boiler maker's packaged boilers contained the defendant's wet cement is not enough.
• Jadlowski v. Owens Corning (1995). A punitive damages award so excessive that it shows prejudice, partiality or passion taints the whole verdict and cannot be cured by remittitur, so a new trial is required. Punitive damages are not awarded for wrongful death, and the award should focus on the defendant's conduct and the lifetime injuries rather than punishing the defendant for harm to all victims.
• Ripa v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas (1995). A defendant is bound only for the share of liability that remains after a settling party's agreed percentage is removed, so the judgment must be molded to that share. Admitting damaging documents against a defendant without proof it received them, and without the required conditional-relevance jury charge, is error that can taint a punitive award.
• Schiavo v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas (1995). A 'day in the life' videotape is admissible once the trial judge finds it relevant, probative and an accurate depiction of the injuries, and error in admitting punitive-phase documents without foundation may be harmless where the punitive award was minimal.
• Landrigan v. Celotex Corp. (1991). Under Rubanick, an expert's causation opinion in toxic-tort cases is admissible if based on sound, reliable methodology, and a qualified non-physician such as an epidemiologist may testify to specific causation; a plaintiff may proceed on both strict liability and negligence without being forced to elect.
• Campolongo v. Celotex Corp. (1988). Under Rule 42(b), a court may sever strict liability from negligence and punitive damage claims in an asbestos failure-to-warn case and bar conduct-related proofs, if defendants waive conduct-based defenses. The court also said an asbestos product sold without a warning may be treated as defective as a matter of law.
• Fischer v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1986). Punitive damages may be pursued and awarded in a strict liability, failure-to-warn products case, including asbestos cases, when the manufacturer knew of or was culpably indifferent to an unnecessary risk and refused to reduce the danger. The standard is a deliberate act or omission with knowledge of a high degree of probability of harm and reckless indifference to consequences.

New York

• Maffei v. Burnham (Matter of New York City Asbestos Litig.) (1st Dept., 2025). Expert testimony from an industrial hygienist and a thoracic surgeon sufficed to establish specific causation, and the compensatory, consortium and punitive awards and the 15% fault allocation to the plaintiff for smoking were upheld as reasonable and supported by the evidence.
• Pefanis v. AO Smith Water Prods. Co. (2024). A defendant seeking summary judgment on causation must affirmatively prove its product could not have contributed to the injury. Competing expert evidence on whether the product released asbestos is a battle of the experts that raises fact issues, as does evidence that a talc supplier knew of contamination and gave no warning.
• Tippin v. 3M Co. (2024). A defendant seeking summary judgment in a toxic tort case must affirmatively show its product could not have contributed to the injury, and competing expert causation evidence presents a fact question. Punitive damages require intentional, unreasonable disregard of a known or obvious risk with conscious indifference, which was not shown here.
• Campise v. Arkema, Inc. (Erie, 2023). Under the Parker and Nemeth test, an expert who estimates exposure levels from peer-reviewed data and compares them to levels shown to cause mesothelioma raises a triable issue of causation without precise quantification. Punitive damages require proof of recklessness or conscious disregard of others' rights.
• McWilliams v. AO Smith Water Prods. Co. (2023). A verdict is set aside as against the weight of the evidence only if no valid line of reasoning could lead rational jurors to it, and pain-and-suffering awards receive great deference. Counsel who submit false discovery responses and let an expert give false testimony uncorrected engage in sanctionable frivolous conduct under 22 NYCRR 130-1.1.
• Rasso v. Avon Prods., Inc. (2023). New York law, not Texas law, governed the motion, because the user testified to significant use of the powder in New York and Colgate is based in New York. Conflicting evidence on asbestos contamination of the talc and on specific causation created fact issues that precluded summary judgment.
• Cioni v. Avon Prods., Inc. (2022). A moving defendant must itself establish a prima facie case on specific causation; relying on worst-case-scenario assumptions without establishing the decedent's actual exposure does not meet that burden. Punitive damages in asbestos litigation require conscious indifference to a known or obvious risk, which was not shown given Colgate's testing.
• Moxam v. Abb, Inc. (2022). Punitive damages require a high degree of moral culpability; a defendant's general awareness that prolonged asbestos exposure could cause injury is not enough, and a plaintiff's single, limited contact with the defendant's product did not support punitive damages.
• Pritt v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2022). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's own product and that the product was a substantial factor in causing the disease. Minimal exposure, or exposure only to another maker's component, is not enough. Maritime law also allows loss of consortium and punitive damages in a non-Jones Act claim.
• Viglietta v. Asbestos Corp., Ltd. (Erie, 2022). Under Nemeth, an expert need not quantify exposure precisely if the methods used are generally accepted in the scientific community. Where a defendant invokes CPLR Article 16 apportionment, the plaintiff may invoke the reckless disregard exception of CPLR 1602(7).
• Piepke v. Insulation Distributors (In re Eight Judicial District Asbestos Litigation) (Erie, 2020). Defendants moving for summary judgment in an asbestos case must offer admissible evidence that their products could not have contributed to the injury; pointing to gaps in plaintiff's proof is not enough. Interrogatory answers sworn under oath but made on information and belief are acceptable, especially where the injured person is deceased.
• Luca v. Whittaker, Clark and Daniels (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2020). A defendant cannot win summary judgment in an asbestos case by pointing to gaps in the plaintiff's proof; it must show its product could not have contributed to the illness. Conflicting expert reports on general and specific causation raise fact issues that cannot be resolved on motion papers.
• Luca v. American Int'l Indus. (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2020). A defendant cannot win summary judgment in an asbestos case by pointing to gaps in the plaintiff's proof, and conflicting expert reports on general and specific causation raise credibility issues that a court cannot resolve on motion papers.
• Peterson v. Vanderbilt Mineral (In re New York City Asbestos Litigation) (2020). A court may grant renewal in the interest of justice to allow expert reports in proper form where the failure to submit them earlier was inadvertent and the other side shows no prejudice. Conflicting expert reports on general and specific causation raise fact issues that bar summary judgment, and a venue change motion served long after the answer is untimely.