Successor Liability in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on successor liability: 210 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.

Illinois

• Krull v. Celotex Corp. (1985). A corporation that survives a formal merger assumes all debts and liabilities of the merged-out predecessor, including contingent tort liabilities such as punitive damages, as if it had incurred them itself; the law of the surviving corporation's state of incorporation (Delaware) governs.

Indiana

• TH Agriculture and Nutrition, LLC. v. Akaiwa (2007). The asbestos-specific accrual rule in Indiana Code 34-20-3-2 applies only to persons who mined and sold commercial asbestos, so a mere distributor is subject to the ten-year statute of repose in Section 1. The principal-distributor provision in 34-20-2-4 does not make a distributor a miner for this purpose.
• Sorenson v. Allied Products Corp. (1999). A company that buys another's assets is not liable for the seller's liabilities unless an exception applies (assumption, fraud, de facto merger, or mere continuation). Here no continuity of ownership or management and no dissolution of the seller meant no de facto merger or mere continuation. A bankruptcy court's asset sale did not strip the state trial court of jurisdiction over a post-sale successor liability tort claim.

Iowa

• Huber v. Watson (1997). In a legal malpractice suit over an asbestos case, the plaintiff must show the underlying suit would have succeeded. Contract specifications naming asbestos products, together with evidence of the manufacturers' corporate successors, gave a jury enough to find product exposure and proximate cause. The state-of-the-art defense does not bar failure-to-warn claims based on later-acquired knowledge.
• Beeman v. Manville Corp. Asbestos Fund (1993). Evidence of cancer risk from asbestos is admissible to show a manufacturer's duty to warn and the reasonableness of a plaintiff's fear of cancer, and proof of exposure plus cumulative-effect expert testimony can create a jury question on proximate cause. Knowledge sufficient to trigger a duty to warn does not by itself support punitive damages, and Iowa law does not allow a separate award for lost opportunity to live out a full life expectancy.

Kentucky

• Papineau v. Brake Supply Company (2020). Common law indemnity requires evidence that the third-party defendant was the primary, active tortfeasor, and a corporate veil piercing theory (including reverse piercing) must be pleaded in the complaint. KRS 411.182 gives a right to an apportionment instruction but is not itself a cause of action.
• Papineau v. Brake Supply Company (2020). Where the parties' evidence conflicts on whether a domestic subsidiary is the alter ego and agent of a foreign parent, the court may defer ruling on service of process and personal jurisdiction and allow limited jurisdictional discovery.
• Papineau v. Brake Supply Company, Inc. (2020). Discovery is limited to claims and defenses actually pleaded, so a party may not take alter ego jurisdictional discovery on a theory it did not plead. Discovery on specific jurisdiction must be tied to the defendant's asbestos friction product sales and the relevant time period.
• Parker v. Henry A. Petter Supply Co. (2005). Kentucky's middleman statute applies to distributors once the manufacturer is identified and subject to the court's jurisdiction, even if the manufacturer is bankrupt or other manufacturers are unnamed; but the distributor's knowledge of the defect is a fact question that needs discovery. A purchaser of a corporation's assets is not a successor unless it continues the seller's ownership or management.

Louisiana

• Legendre v. Louisiana Ins. Guaranty Association (2024). A joiner that assembled wallboard for a shipyard is not a manufacturer, and veil-piercing to treat a parent as its subsidiary's alter ego is an extraordinary remedy requiring more than shared officers and ownership. Fact questions on control, holding out and scale preclude summary judgment on professional vendor status, and the first-to-file rule requires substantial overlap between cases.
• Matherne v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2024). Knowing of a product's hazards is not the same as being substantially certain that a particular person's disease would result, so the claim sounds in negligence rather than intentional tort. Close ties between a parent and its wholly owned subsidiary, without extraordinary circumstances such as fraud, do not justify piercing the corporate veil under Louisiana law. A subcontractor that installs furnished wallboard in a ship is not a manufacturer of the finished product, even under the Louisiana Products Liability Act definition.
• Rivet v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2023). Under Rule 15(a)(2), leave to amend should be granted absent a substantial reason to deny it, and any delay or prejudice from related litigation elsewhere can be cured by staying the added claims rather than denying amendment.
• Becnel v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). An intentional tort requires proof that the defendant desired the injury or knew it was substantially certain to follow, and knowing of a risk or acting recklessly is not enough. Whether one affiliated corporation is the alter ego of another under the single business enterprise theory turns on eighteen non-exclusive factors, and disputed evidence on them is for a jury.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Louisiana law a subcontractor that furnishes and installs a component in a vessel built by another is not a manufacturer of that component. A seller can be liable as a professional vendor if it controls product quality, holds the product out as its own, and sells on sufficient scale, and fact issues on those elements preclude summary judgment.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Louisiana law, a seller is a professional vendor only if it holds the product out as its own and operates with sufficient size, volume and merchandising practices; co-parties not adverse to the movant lack standing to oppose its summary judgment motion.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Louisiana law, an intentional tort requires proof that the injury was substantially certain to follow, and knowledge of asbestos hazards shows only negligence. Veil-piercing, including the single business enterprise theory, requires more than affiliation or control, such as fraud or other wrongdoing.
• Falcone v. Anco Insulations, Inc. (2022). Summary judgment on whether a company with a similar name took on a predecessor's liabilities was inappropriate where the transfer of liabilities was unclear, the governing law (Texas or forum law) had not been established, and further discovery was needed.
• Reulet v. Lamorak Ins. Co. (2022). Plaintiffs need only show a reasonable jury could find it more likely than not that the decedent inhaled the defendant's asbestos fibers, even from slight exposures; credibility determinations are not made at summary judgment. A purchase agreement expressly assuming the predecessor's litigation liabilities can make the buyer a successor to those liabilities.
• Broussard v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2021). Under Louisiana law, a plaintiff must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she was exposed to asbestos; testimony showing only a possibility of exposure, such as a child's memory of seeing a parent change brakes of unknown make, does not defeat summary judgment.
• Hayes v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2nd Circuit, 2021). A predecessor's minimum contacts with Louisiana can be imputed to a successor corporation for personal jurisdiction where the record shows only name changes between them and counsel conceded the two were the same entity apart from the name change. Plaintiffs need not prove transfer of liabilities through records that are unavailable.
• Legendre v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2021). Summary judgment on successor liability was improper because genuine issues of material fact existed about what assets and liabilities Mestek intended to acquire from Wing and legally assumed under the 1987 Asset Purchase Agreement.
• Legendre v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2021). A party seeking jurisdictional discovery must make a preliminary showing of factual allegations suggesting with reasonable particularity the possible existence of the requisite contacts; allegations of corporate successor status can meet that showing, since a predecessor's forum contacts may be imputed to its successor.
• McAllister v. McDERMOTT, Inc. (2020). Under general maritime law a plaintiff must show a defendant's conduct was a substantial factor in the injury, and circumstantial evidence can show exposure, but not when nothing shows the defendant's product was present at the worksite. Louisiana law governed successor liability and does not recognize the product line exception.
• Bannister v. Sfb Companies, Inc. (1st Circuit, 2019). A nonresident successor corporation cannot be sued in Louisiana by imputing a predecessor's forum contacts unless the record shows the predecessor's liabilities were actually transferred to it; without that evidence, plaintiffs fail their initial burden of proving minimum contacts. A judgment denying an exception is not a final judgment that can be certified under La. C.C.P. art. 1915.
• In re Friede Goldman Halter, Inc. (2019). A bankruptcy court that has jurisdiction to interpret its own confirmation order does not have exclusive jurisdiction, and it may permissively abstain and equitably remand a removed state-law case even when mandatory abstention does not apply.
• Murphy v. Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc. (2017). Where plaintiffs have not yet had access to information held by defendants, a court may deny motions to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction or failure to state a claim, allow jurisdictional discovery, and order a more definite statement of the factual basis for the claims.
• Williams v. Rust Engineering & Construction Co. (2016). A plaintiff must make a prima facie showing of personal jurisdiction; conclusory allegations need not be credited, and an uncontroverted affidavit showing no contacts with the forum defeats jurisdiction. The court will not grant a dispositive motion merely because it is unopposed.
• Comardelle v. Pennsylvania General Insurance Company (2014). A company that acquires assets is not liable as successor for the transferor's liabilities unless it expressly assumed them; the unambiguous Contribution Agreement transferred only liabilities connected to the listed assets, so under either Texas or Louisiana law P2S did not assume SECO's employer liability.
• Rome v. Asbestos Defendants (4th Circuit, 2011). Once defendants showed the exposure was attributable to Arnot Marine Corporation, to which plaintiffs conceded Dover was not a successor, plaintiffs had to offer specific evidence of a genuine factual dispute, and mere possibility or speculation did not suffice.
• Pichon v. Asbestos Defendants (4th Circuit, 2010). A company that bought only part of a seller's assets, and expressly refused to assume its liabilities, is not liable as a successor under the 'mere continuation' exception, which requires purchase of all the assets. Plaintiffs must also offer factual support that the defendant's own products exposed the worker to asbestos.

Maine

• Godbout v. WLB Holding, Inc. (2010). The three-year repose period for claims against a voluntarily dissolved corporation (13-C M.R.S. § 1408(3)) is a reasonable procedural limit that does not violate the Maine Constitution's open courts provision, and it bars claims regardless of any remaining insurance proceeds.

Maryland

• Stein v. Pfizer Inc. (2016). Under the objective reliance test, the actual reliance test, and the enterprise liability test alike, a parent company is not an "apparent manufacturer" of a subsidiary's industrial product where the sophisticated purchaser knew it bought from the subsidiary and the parent did not substantially participate in the design, manufacture or distribution.

Massachusetts

• McIsaac v. Air & Liquid Systems Corporation (2023). Under maritime law, a plaintiff must show exposure to the defendant's product at a high enough level that it was a substantial factor in causing the injury; the mere presence of the product at the workplace is insufficient. Rule 56(d) allows time to find facts, not to gather additional expert opinions.
• Cabot Csc Corporation v. Aearo Technologies LLC (2017). Under New York law, an unambiguous contract term is enforced by its plain meaning, and the term "silica" in the asset transfer agreement means silicon dioxide, including the silica in coal mine dust. The broad "any liability" retention also placed all liability for those claims on the seller without allocation.

Minnesota

• Palmer v. Walker Jamar Company (2019). A Minnesota asbestos wrongful-death claim accrues when the disease manifests in a way causally linked to asbestos, or at death if earlier, without the plaintiff needing to identify the specific defendant. Podvin bars claims against a dissolved corporation brought more than two years after dissolution, and the 2007 amendment to section 302A.781 does not apply retroactively.
• United States v. Reserve Mining Company (1974). A discharge that substantially endangers public health is a public nuisance and violates the cited water and air standards, so an injunction is warranted unless the harm from stopping it is overwhelming. A parent's separate corporate identity may be disregarded when the subsidiary is a mere instrumentality used as a shield.

Mississippi

• Dickens v. A-1 Auto Parts & Repair Inc. (2020). Under Mississippi's choice-of-law rules (Restatement (Second) § 145), the law of the successor's state of incorporation and of its asset purchase agreement governs successor liability, and a successor cannot be held liable under the product line theory where those states have not adopted it.

Missouri

• 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.
• Douglas v. Imerys Talc America, Inc. (2019). Complete diversity existed regardless of fraudulent joinder, so remand was denied. A sister company is generally not liable for another company's acts absent a pleaded alter ego or agency theory, and general allegations of commonality do not plead alter ego under Delaware law.
• Harashe v. Flintkote Co. (Eastern District, 3rd Division, 1993). A buyer of a company's assets can be liable as successor under a de facto merger when it continues operations, pays with its own stock, and requires the seller to dissolve. Expert testimony that exposure to the defendant's product contributed causally to mesothelioma satisfies the substantial-factor causation test of Hagen.
• Hagen v. Rapid American Corp. (Eastern District, 4th Division, 1990). A party is aggrieved and may appeal only if a judgment prejudices its rights directly and immediately. Plaintiffs who stipulated to severing a defendant, and who feared only a remote contingent future loss, were not aggrieved by a without-prejudice dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction.

Nevada

• Potter v. Crane Co. (2022). In an asbestos claim a plaintiff must show that the particular defendant sufficiently exposed him to asbestos; without a product traceable to the defendant, negligence, strict liability and conspiracy claims fail, and a holding company is not liable for its subsidiary absent a successor-liability exception.

New Jersey

• In re Ltl Management, LLC (2022). A bankruptcy court may extend the automatic stay under § 362(a), or enjoin under § 105(a), state consumer-protection actions against nondebtors even where they fall within the § 362(b)(4) police-power exception, when unusual circumstances exist and the injunction factors are met.
• Kirkwood v. Brenntag North America, Inc. (2020). A court may allow jurisdictional discovery where a plaintiff's allegations suggest with reasonable particularity that the defendant has contacts with the forum, including through successor theories. A § 1404(a) transfer requires that the transferee court could command jurisdiction over all defendants, and the movant bears the burden of showing this.
• Thomas-Fish v. Aetna Steel Products Corp. (2019). To impute a predecessor's jurisdictional contacts to an alleged successor, a plaintiff must plead facts supporting a plausible conclusion that the successor is a mere continuation of or the same as the predecessor, such as an asset acquisition or merger; unsupported assertions of successorship do not make a prima facie showing.
• Hernandez v. Brenntag North America, Inc. (2016). Under the forum-defendant rule, removal is barred unless forum-state defendants were fraudulently joined, which requires claims against them to be wholly insubstantial and frivolous, without a reasonable basis in fact or colorable ground; the court may not reach the merits of the claims.

New York

• Biljetina v. Brenntag N. AM., Inc. (2025). A claim for latent asbestos injury must be brought within three years of discovery under CPLR 214-c(2). Equitable estoppel and relation-back did not save claims against a new defendant that showed no wrongdoing and no unity of interest with the original defendants.
• Berger v. Aerco Intl., Inc. (2021). A corporation that acquires another's assets is generally not liable for the predecessor's torts unless an exception applies (assumption of liability, merger, mere continuation, or fraud), and the plaintiffs bore the burden of showing one.
• Love v. Aerco Intl., Inc. (2021). A defendant seeking summary judgment in an asbestos case must show its product could not have contributed to the plaintiff's injury; testimony identifying the defendant's products and the dust they created raised a fact issue. A successor holding the brand's assets only for a set period is not liable for products sold by other entities outside that period.
• Mrjaj v. Air & Liquid Sys. Corp. (Erie, 2021). A defendant is entitled to summary judgment where plaintiffs offer no evidence creating a reasonable inference that the decedent was exposed to and inhaled asbestos fibers from that defendant's product, even if the company named in a document is presumed to be the defendant.