Take-Home Exposure in Asbestos Cases

Decisions in our library in which the court ruled on duty to family members exposed to dust brought home (take-home: 238 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

• Rodarmel v. Pneumo Abex, LLC (4th District, 2011). In 1953-1956 an employer owed no duty to warn of asbestos carried home on work clothing because such injury was not reasonably foreseeable, and parallel conduct plus trade-group membership, shared directors, and suppression of non-significant animal data did not clearly and convincingly prove a conspiratorial agreement.
• Simpkins v. CSX Corp. (5th District, 2010). Under ordinary Illinois negligence principles, an employer owes the immediate families of its employees a duty to protect against take-home asbestos exposure, where the harm is foreseeable. Duty is not liability; breach and proximate cause remain for proof.
• Nelson v. Aurora Equipment Company (2nd District, 2009). A premises-liability claim requires that the plaintiff be an entrant on the defendant's land or have some special relationship with the defendant; a person off the premises who was exposed to fibers carried home on a worker's clothes was owed no such duty.

Iowa

• Van Fossen v. MidAmerican Energy Co. (2009). One who employs an independent contractor owes no general duty of reasonable care to a household member of the contractor's employee, and owes only the limited duties under Restatement (Second) of Torts sections 413, 416 and 427, which were not triggered here.
• Fossen v. Midamerican Energy Company (2008). Iowa courts weigh the relationship between the parties, foreseeability of harm and public policy; on that analysis a landowner owes no duty to the spouse of an independent contractor's employee who carried asbestos fibers home from the premises.

Kentucky

• Brewer v. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (2024). A court may order the SSA to disclose records under the Privacy Act regulations, limited to relevant periods, but orders compelling production from non-parties such as employers, medical providers and a state agency require service of a Rule 45 subpoena first.
• Williams v. Schneider Electric USA, Inc. (2023). Duty turns on foreseeability, not on labels like bystander, and household members who regularly and repeatedly came into close contact with a worker's asbestos-contaminated clothes over an extended period are owed a duty where the take-home danger was foreseeable by the late 1960s. A brief, unrelated stint of employment does not make workers' compensation exclusivity bar the non-work-related claims.
• Schneider Electric USA, Inc. v. Williams (2019). The workers' compensation exclusive remedy provision covers only work-related injuries, so a brief period of employment does not bar a separate claim for non-work-related asbestos injury from a parent's workplace; damages may be apportioned between the two roles under the Owens Corning approach.
• Rehm v. Ford Motor Company (2011). Evidence rulings are reviewed for abuse of discretion. The trial court properly admitted 28-year-old newspaper articles under the ancient-documents hearsay exception and let a qualified expert testify, because weaknesses in expert testimony go to weight and are tested on cross-examination. A loss of consortium claim accrues when the disease becomes manifest, not on exposure.

Louisiana

• Alford v. Taylor-Seidenbach, Inc. (2025). Under Louisiana law before the Products Liability Act, an OSHA-compliant asbestos warning is not automatically adequate, and whether a warning was adequate is a jury question. Exposure to a particular asbestos product may be shown by circumstantial evidence.
• Craft v. Crowley Marine Services, Inc. (4th Circuit, 2024). Res judicata under La. R.S. 13:4231 requires the same parties (or privies) and a cause of action that existed when the first judgment became final. A wife's later claim did not meet either requirement, because her own claim was separate from her husband's and she discovered her disease after his judgment.
• Lagrange v. Eagle, Inc. (2024). The court, relying on its reasoning in Falgout v. Anco Insulations and similar earlier cases, held that defendants were not entitled to use the Government Contractor Defense in this asbestos case.
• Legendre v. Louisiana Ins. Guaranty Association (2024). Experts whose qualifications and reliable methods are shown may testify under Rule 702; disagreements with the facts relied on or with the experts' interpretation go to cross-examination rather than exclusion.
• Matherne v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2024). Summary judgment may be granted on the narrow facts that decedent had mesothelioma and died of it when no expert disputes them; the court need not state that specific causation and asbestos source remain disputed.
• Matherne v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2024). An assumption of another's obligation under La. Civ. Code arts. 1821-1823 must be explicit and in writing, and buy-back agreements that release and void insurance policies do not assume the insurers' obligations to third parties.
• Palermo v. Eagle Inc. (2024). When a subpoena seeks a non-party's personnel file, the court balances the non-party's privacy interest against the need for relevant information using the Frankenhauser factors. Relevant records may be produced, with sensitive information excluded, redacted or protected by order.
• Sentilles v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2024). A court may decline under Rule 54(b) to reconsider an unopposed summary judgment order when there is no new contrary evidence, and a plaintiff may not adopt a settling party's experts late, or offer new undisclosed expert opinions, where that would unfairly prejudice the defendant.
• Crossland v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2023). Strict liability under Louisiana Civil Code art. 2317 requires that the defendant have custody or control of the dangerous thing. Under Louisiana negligence law, fact disputes over a husband's workplace exposure and the employer's knowledge preclude summary judgment on a take-home claim. Experts may rely on fact-witness testimony about exposure, and challenges to that testimony go to weight.
• Everett v. Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. (4th Circuit, 2023). A motion to join a summary judgment motion is subject to the mandatory 65-day filing deadline of La. C.C.P. art. 966(B)(1) and to service requirements. A plaintiff must produce specific evidence tying the defendant to the exposure to defeat summary judgment, but a court abuses its discretion by summarily denying a new trial where counsel's error may have caused a miscarriage of justice.
• Pete v. Boland Marine and Manufacturing Company, LLC (4th Circuit, 2023). A jury instruction that correctly makes fault an element of a take-home claim cures the omission of fault from a verdict interrogatory when no timely objection was made. The reviewing court will not disturb a jury's causation finding or a general damage award unless the record shows manifest error or an abuse of discretion.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (2023). The LHWCA applies as it existed when the disease manifested, and its exclusivity provision preempts a covered worker's state negligence and intentional tort claims against his employer. Awareness of asbestos risk does not show that mesothelioma was substantially certain to result.
• Robichaux v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (2023). Under Rule 37(c)(1), late-disclosed expert affidavits need not be excluded where the factors (importance, prejudice, continuance, explanation) show substantial justification or harmlessness, even if the affidavits are not proper supplemental reports.
• Robichaux v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (2023). Federal pleading rules require only fair notice of a claim, and the amended complaint gave it. Under Louisiana law, plaintiffs defeat summary judgment in an asbestos case by showing a reasonable jury could find it more likely than not that the plaintiff inhaled the defendant's asbestos fibers, even in slight exposures.
• Thompson v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2023). Under the federal officer removal statute, a defendant satisfies the 'related to' requirement by showing the plaintiff was likely exposed to asbestos being used under a federal officer's direction, with no direct causal nexus required.
• Adams v. Eagle, Inc. (2022). To show cause-in-fact in an asbestos case, a party must show significant exposure to the defendant's asbestos product and an injury substantially caused by that exposure; circumstantial evidence of proximity to the product can create a fact issue and defeat summary judgment.
• Adams v. Eagle, Inc. (2022). Under Louisiana law, a party must show significant exposure to asbestos attributable to the defendant and that the exposure was a substantial factor in the injury; a reasonable jury could find both here, so summary judgment was not proper.
• Adams v. Eagle, Inc. (2022). The Boyle defense to a failure-to-warn claim requires government-approved warnings or a reasonably precise government specification, and a minimum safety standard like the Walsh-Healey Act is not one. Yearsley immunity does not protect a contractor from claims of its own separate negligence in carrying out a government contract.
• Allen v. Eagle Inc. (4th Circuit, 2022). Conflicting testimony about exposure is a credibility question that cannot be resolved on summary judgment. An expert's reliance on assumptions about frequency, duration and proximity of exposure goes to the weight of the opinion, not its admissibility under Daubert.
• Boutte v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (2022). A Rule 12(e) motion for more definite statement is disfavored and is granted only when a pleading is so vague as to be unintelligible and to seriously prejudice the responding party; missing details such as job and dates can be obtained in discovery.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Ins. Co. (2022). The LHWCA preempts state-law tort claims, including take-home exposure claims, by a covered maritime worker against his employer and the employer's insurer, and the date the disease manifested determines which version of the LHWCA applies. Plaintiff also failed to produce evidence of an intentional tort under Louisiana's substantial-certainty standard.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). An expert's testimony is admissible if relevant to a pending issue, such as a shipyard's knowledge of asbestos hazards for a sophisticated-purchaser defense, but testimony on issues already resolved by summary judgment or outside the expert's field is excluded.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Louisiana law a duty to household members for take-home exposure can exist before 1972 without an OSHA rule, and Article 2317 custody can be shared. A seller is a professional vendor, liable like a manufacturer, only if it held the product out as its own and had sufficient size and volume of sales.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Federal Rule of Evidence 703, an expert may rely on inadmissible facts or data that experts in the field reasonably rely on, but the proponent may not disclose them to the jury unless their probative value in evaluating the opinion substantially outweighs their prejudicial effect.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Louisiana law a plaintiff must show significant exposure to the defendant's asbestos product, and a deceased father's out-of-court statements about where he worked are hearsay not covered by the Rule 804(b)(4) family-history exception. A manufacturer has no duty to warn of dangers of a third party's asbestos insulation it did not make, sell, specify or recommend, but may be liable if it supplied or specified asbestos gaskets.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). The LHWCA preempts state-law tort claims by a covered shipyard worker against his employer for his own employment exposure, but it does not preempt claims against the same company as a non-employer for take-home exposure that occurred before he worked there. Intentional-tort claims fail where there is no evidence that the disease was inevitable or substantially certain to result.
• Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Company (2022). Under Louisiana law, an asbestos claimant must show significant exposure and that the exposure was a substantial factor in causing his injury. A short period of exposure does not by itself entitle a defendant to summary judgment. Deposition testimony from another proceeding can be considered on summary judgment if it could be presented in admissible form at trial.
• Crossland v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2022). Under the Fifth Circuit's modified Boyle test for failure-to-warn claims, a contractor must show the government exercised discretion over the warnings. Yearsley immunity covers only acts authorized and directed by the government, not separate negligence in workplace safety and warnings.
• Reulet v. Lamorak Ins. Co. (2022). An insurer's liability under the exposure theory is co-extensive with its insured's liability for harmful exposure during the policy period. Plaintiffs must offer evidence beyond speculation that the decedent was near the insured's products during that period, even if the exposures were slight.
• Roussell v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2022). Under Louisiana law, a plaintiff must prove exposure to asbestos from the defendant's product and that the exposure was a substantial cause of her injury; without direct or circumstantial evidence connecting the exposed person to the defendant's products, summary judgment is proper.
• Roussell v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2022). A plaintiff who fails to oppose a summary judgment motion arguing she has no evidence of exposure to the defendant's asbestos products is treated as admitting she cannot prove her claims.
• Sentilles v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (2022). Under the Fifth Circuit's manifestation rule, the LHWCA version in effect when the disease manifested applies. A shipyard employer is therefore immune from state-law tort claims for covered workers' occupational exposure, including take-home exposure from a coworker brother employed there at the same time.
• Sentilles v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (2022). Under the manifestation rule, the post-1972 LHWCA applies to a mesothelioma diagnosed in 2020. A shipyard worker's state-law tort claims against his employer, including take-home exposure from a coworker brother employed at the same time, are preempted by the LHWCA's exclusivity provision.
• Sentilles v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2022). A plaintiff who fails to oppose a summary judgment motion is treated as having admitted the facts it asserts, and summary judgment follows where the motion appears to have merit and he cannot show an essential element of his claim.
• Williams v. Huntington Ingalls Industries (2022). Under Louisiana law, a plaintiff must show significant exposure to the defendant's asbestos-containing product and that the exposure was a substantial cause of the injury. Circumstantial evidence that the product was used throughout the workplace and near where the worker was can defeat summary judgment even without identifying the product by name.
• Barrosse v. Huntington Ingalls Incorporated (2021). The post-1972 LHWCA applies to a long-latency asbestos disease based on the date the disease manifested. For covered shipyard workers in the 'twilight zone', the LHWCA's exclusivity provision preempts state-law negligence claims against the employer, and retroactive application does not violate due process.
• 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.
• Broussard v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2021). Under Louisiana law a plaintiff must show significant exposure to the defendant's asbestos-containing product, and mere presence of the product at the worksite is not enough. Circumstantial evidence that a worker regularly worked near a defendant's asbestos cloth can create a fact issue on take-home exposure.
• Broussard v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2021). The government contractor defense to a failure-to-warn claim requires evidence that the federal government was involved in the decision to give or not give a warning and that the contractor complied with the government's warning provisions. Avondale offered no such evidence.
• Clark v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (2021). Under the federal officer removal statute, a defendant need only show a broad connection or association between the plaintiff's claims and its acts done under federal direction; evidence that a particular person exposed the plaintiff worked on a federal vessel is not required.
• Jackson v. Avondale Industries, Inc. (2021). Under Louisiana law a plaintiff must show that exposure to the defendant's asbestos product was significant and was a substantial factor in causing the disease. Circumstantial evidence of exposure and causation can raise fact questions that defeat summary judgment.