Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (E.D. La., Mar. 22, 2023, as to Amdura)

Our plain-English summary of Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana, March 22, 2023).

Frank P. Ragusa, Jr. sued several defendants, including the Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association, in federal court in the Eastern District of Louisiana. He has mesothelioma. He asked the court for partial summary judgment that he has mesothelioma and that asbestos caused it. Amdura, Syngenta, Rubicon and FMC filed opposition memoranda. The court found undisputed medical evidence that Ragusa has mesothelioma. Relying on its reasoning in an earlier case, Cortez v. Lamorak Insurance Co., it granted the motion. The court said the ruling does not stop the defendants from distinguishing among different exposures and forms of asbestos. It also does not stop them from presenting evidence to the jury on specific causation of his disease. The order is short and does not describe where or how Ragusa was exposed to asbestos.

We wrote this summary from the court's opinion with the help of AI. It is not the court's wording, and it is not legal advice. The full opinion is below.

The decision

• Court: U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Louisiana
• Decided: March 22, 2023
• Docket: Civil Action No. 21-1971
• Stage: Summary judgment
• State: Louisiana

Outcome. The court granted plaintiff Frank Ragusa Jr.'s motion for summary judgment that he has mesothelioma and that asbestos caused it, over opposition from Amdura, Syngenta, Rubicon and FMC.

What the court held. Undisputed medical evidence established that the plaintiff has mesothelioma and that asbestos caused it. This general causation ruling does not stop defendants from distinguishing among exposures and forms of asbestos or from contesting specific causation before the jury.

Issues decided: Causation.

The people and their exposure

• Frank P. Ragusa, Jr.: mesothelioma

The defendants

• Amdura, LLC
• Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC
• Rubicon LLC
• FMC Corporation
• Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (insurer)

Other decisions in this case

Other rulings from the same court in the same case, in our library:

• Ragusa v. Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (March 7, 2022). The court denied plaintiff Frank Ragusa's motion for a preferential trial setting, ruling for defendant Huntington Ingalls because an expedited trial would not allow enough time for discovery and preparation.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 8, 2023). The court granted LIGA's summary judgment motion as to coverage of Avondale itself, because Avondale is a high net worth insured, and denied it without prejudice as to coverage of Avondale's executive officers.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 20, 2023). The court granted summary judgment to Avondale (Huntington Ingalls) and to Travelers as insurer of Avondale's alleged executive officers, dismissing Ragusa's negligence and intentional tort claims as barred by the LHWCA.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 22, 2023). The court granted Avondale's motion for partial summary judgment on strict liability, direct negligence and intentional tort claims for the 1989 exposures, and denied it on vicarious liability, so Ragusa lost on three theories and won on one.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 27, 2023). The court denied plaintiff Frank Ragusa's motion to remand the case to state court, keeping it in federal court against Avondale (Huntington Ingalls) and the other defendants.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 29, 2023). The court denied all nine summary judgment motions by premises owners and product companies, so Ragusa's asbestos claims against Pharmacia, Legacy Vulcan, Syngenta, Marathon, Murphy Oil, International Paper, Westinghouse and Riley Power continue.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 30, 2023). The court denied the defendants' Daubert motion to exclude plaintiff Frank Ragusa's experts Dr. Kraus and Dr. Landreneau, so plaintiff's specific-causation testimony on his mesothelioma may be presented at trial.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Guaranty Insurance Association (March 31, 2023). The court granted the premises-owner defendants' partial summary judgment on strict liability under former article 2317 for crane exposures in 1996 or earlier, and denied it for any later years; Ragusa lost on the earlier years.
• Ragusa v. Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association (October 8, 2024). The court granted the Louisiana Insurance Guaranty Association's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the Ragusa family's wrongful death claims as not timely "covered claims"; LIGA won and the plaintiffs lost on those claims.

The court's opinion

The text below is Google Scholar's copy of the court's opinion, a public record. Numbers in brackets, such as [*921], mark where each page of the printed reporter begins.

FRANK P. RAGUSA, JR.,

v.

LOUISIANA GUARANTY INSURANCE ASSOCIATION, ET AL. SECTION: "J"(5).

Civil Action No. 21-1971.

March 22, 2023.

United States District Court, E.D. Louisiana.

ORDER

CARL J. BARBIER, District Judge.

Before the Court is plaintiff Frank P. Ragusa, Jr.'s Motion for Summary Judgment that Frank P. Ragusa, Jr. Has Mesothelioma and that Asbestos was the Cause of his Mesothelioma (Rec. Doc. 343). Opposition memoranda were filed by Amdura, LLC (Rec. Doc. 434), Syngenta Crop Protection, LLC (Rec. Doc. 487), Rubicon LLC (Rec. Doc. 491), and FMC Corporation (Rec. Doc 495).

The record in this case contains undisputed medical evidence that the plaintiff Frank P. Ragusa, Jr. has mesothelioma. For the same reasons in Cortez v. Lamorak Ins. Co., No. 20-2389, 2022 WL 1135830 (E.D. La. Apr. 18, 2022); the Court finds that Ragusa is entitled to summary judgment on these issues. Establishing that asbestos caused Ragusa's mesothelioma does not preclude defendants from distinguishing among different exposures and forms of asbestos as they see fit, and this ruling does not prevent defendants from presenting to the jury evidence regarding specific causation of Plaintiff's mesothelioma.

Accordingly,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiff's motion for summary judgment (Rec. Doc. 343) is GRANTED.

Sources

• The opinion on Google Scholar
• Louisiana asbestos laws
• Louisiana asbestos exposure sites