Pennsylvania Asbestos Case Law

Asbestos decisions from Pennsylvania's courts and the federal courts there: 303 cases in our library so far. For what the law requires today, see Pennsylvania asbestos laws; for where exposure happened, see Pennsylvania asbestos exposure sites.

Federal district courts

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania

• Kiser v. AW Chesterton Co. (2011). The court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss, holding the estate's wrongful death claim over Mr. Kiser's mesothelioma was time-barred under Virginia law, so Phyllis Kiser, as executor, lost.
• Millsaps v. Aluminum Company of America (2011). The magistrate judge granted in part and denied in part plaintiff Millsaps's motion to compel, denying his demand for all 1300 boxes of Alcoa documents but ordering a prompt, agreed-term search and production, and denied Alcoa's motion for protective order.
• Wagers v. Sgl Carbon, LLC (2011). The court denied SGL Carbon's motion for summary judgment, so the claim by Patricia Wagers over her husband's mesothelioma death goes forward on the inherently dangerous activity theory.
• Willis v. BW IP International Inc. (2011). The court denied the motions for summary judgment of Foster Wheeler, CBS Corp. (Westinghouse) and Crane Co. on the government contractor defense, finding genuine disputes of material fact, so plaintiff Tina Willis prevailed on the motions.
• Cowley v. Acands, Inc. (2010). The court granted summary judgment to defendant MCIC, Inc. against plaintiff Andrew Cowley, ruling his earlier deposition inadmissible and finding no admissible evidence that he worked near MCIC's asbestos work.
• Curry v. American Standard (2010). The court sustained Buffalo Pumps' first objection only in part, overruled its other objections, and adopted the magistrate panel's recommendation denying Buffalo's summary judgment motion, so the estate of Michael Curry's claim against Buffalo continues.
• Curry v. American Standard (2010). The district court overruled Crane Co.'s three objections and adopted the magistrate judges' recommendation to deny Crane Co.'s motion for summary judgment, so the estate of Michael Curry's claims against Crane Co. continue; the bare-metal argument was denied without prejudice to refiling after remand.
• Dent v. Westinghouse (2010). The magistrate judge denied defendant Warren Pumps' motion to compel plaintiff Reginald Dent to disclose settlement information and dismissed the rest of the motion as moot.
• Faddish v. CBS Corporation (2010). The court overruled CBS Corporation's objections and denied its summary judgment motion on product identification, denied it without prejudice on the bare metal defense (leaving that to the transferor court), and denied it on the sophisticated purchaser defense, so Ruth Faddish's claim continues.
• Faddish v. General Electric Co. (2010). The court adopted the magistrate panel's finding that a genuine factual dispute existed on product identification, but granted General Electric summary judgment on the government contractor defense, so the plaintiff lost her failure-to-warn claim against GE.
• Faddish v. Warren Pumps, LLC (2010). The court overruled Warren Pumps' objections, adopted the magistrate panel's recommendation, and denied Warren's summary judgment motion on causation, while also adopting the unobjected finding that Warren is not Quimby Pump Company's successor-in-interest.
• Gitto v. AW Chesterton Co., Inc. (2010). The district court overruled Crane Co.'s objections and adopted the magistrate panel's recommendation denying Crane Co.'s motion for summary judgment, so the Gittos' claims against Crane Co. continue; the bare-metal argument was denied without prejudice to refiling in the transferor court.
• Hagen v. Benjamin Foster Co. (2010). The court denied plaintiff Donna Hagen's motion to remand to New Jersey state court, holding that defendants Foster Wheeler and General Electric properly removed under the federal officer removal statute.
• Larson v. Bondex Int'l (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2010). The court denied all four defense summary judgment motions: Bondex's without prejudice because of its bankruptcy, Georgia-Pacific's causation motion because the plaintiff's expert testimony had been ruled admissible, and the product identification motions of Georgia-Pacific and Union Carbide on the merits, so plaintiff Dianna Larson's claims go forward.
• Travis v. United Gilsonite Laboratories (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2010). The district court overruled the plaintiff's objections and adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation, granting summary judgment to United Gilsonite Laboratories because there was no evidence Mr. Travis worked with its joint compound.
• Travis v. Globe Mfg. Co. (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2010). The court overruled the plaintiff's objections and adopted the magistrate judge's recommendation, granting summary judgment to Globe Manufacturing Co. and against plaintiff Travis.
• Larson v. Georgia Pacific (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2010). The district court overruled both Georgia Pacific's objections and the plaintiffs' objections to the magistrate judge's ruling, so the magistrate judge's denial of both sides' motions to exclude expert testimony stood.
• Larson v. Georgia Pacific (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2010). The court denied all four Daubert motions, allowing plaintiffs' causation experts (Brody, limited to general causation, and Legier), defense industrial hygienist Dyson's dose reconstruction testimony, and defendants' causation experts to testify.
• In re Lindemann v. Edison (2010). The court granted Ohio Edison's motion for summary judgment because the plaintiff, executor of George Lindemann's estate, offered insufficient evidence that Ohio Edison possessed the Bruce Mansfield plant during the exposure period.
• King v. EI DuPont De Nemours and Co. (2010). The court granted defendant AMF Inc.'s motion to dismiss all 86 plaintiffs' cases for failing to file the medical reports required by Texas Chapter 90, ruling against the plaintiffs.
• McGUFFIE v. Mead Corp. (2010). The court granted summary judgment to MW Custom Papers, LLC (successor to Mead Corp.) against plaintiffs Alford and Iris McGuffie, because there was no evidence Mead assumed a duty of safety at its former subsidiary's plant; the limitations question was not reached.
• Peter & Elpis Constantinides v. Alfa Laval, Inc. (2010). The court overruled Crane Co.'s objections, adopted the magistrate panel's report, and denied Crane Co.'s motion for summary judgment, so the plaintiffs' claims against Crane Co. proceed.
• Peter & Elpis Constantinides v. CBS Corporation (2010). The court sustained CBS Corporation (Westinghouse)'s objection that no evidence tied Mr. Constantinides's injury to original Westinghouse gaskets and packing, but denied summary judgment without prejudice on the bare metal defense and denied it on the sophisticated purchaser defense, so plaintiffs won in part and CBS won in part.
• Peter & Elpis Constantinides v. CBS Corporation (2010). The court sustained CBS/Westinghouse's objections and granted summary judgment on the original gaskets and packing for lack of product-identification evidence, but denied summary judgment without prejudice on the bare metal defense and denied it on the sophisticated purchaser defense, so the plaintiffs partly lost and partly prevailed.
• Peter & Elpis Constantinides v. Leslie Controls, Inc. (2010). The court overruled Leslie Controls' objections and denied its summary judgment motion on product identification and medical causation, leaving the bare-metal question for the Florida transferor court, so plaintiffs prevailed for now.
• Peter & Elpis Constantinides v. Leslie Controls, Inc. (2010). The court overruled Leslie Controls' objections and denied its summary judgment motion on product identification and causation, leaving the bare metal defense to the transferor court, so the plaintiffs prevailed for now.
• Shamir v. Agilent Technologies, Inc. (2010). The court granted Hewlett-Packard and Agilent's motion to dismiss, holding the widow's tort claim barred by the New Jersey Workers' Compensation Act, and denied her request for more discovery as moot.
• Breedlove v. CSX Transp. Corp. (2009). The court denied CSX Transportation's motion for summary judgment, so Breedlove's estate's premises liability claim against CSX goes forward.
• Hogston v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (2009). The court granted summary judgment to National Service Industries (successor to distributor North Bros.) and against plaintiff Doris Hogston, because she could not show North Bros. supplied the Kaylo insulation to the plant.
• Hogston v. Allis-Chalmers Corp. (2009). The court granted summary judgment to National Service Industries (successor to distributor North Bros.) and against plaintiff Doris Hogston, because she had no evidence that North Bros. supplied the Kaylo insulation to the plant.
• Anderson v. Bondex Int'l (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2009). The magistrate judge denied plaintiff Barbara Anderson's motion for leave to amend her complaint, because the new workplace-exposure claims did not relate back to the initial complaint and would be time-barred, so the amendment was futile; defendants Bondex, Georgia-Pacific and Union Carbide prevailed.
• Anderson v. Bondex Int'l (In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation) (2009). The court denied the motions in limine by Bondex, RPM, Georgia-Pacific and Union Carbide to exclude evidence of plaintiff Anderson's exposure to joint compound dust during sanding and cleanup, holding the Virginia statute of repose did not bar it.
• In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation (2009). The court denied the motions to quash filed by the doctors and plaintiffs, and granted the defendants' motions to compel in part, enforcing the subpoenas only as to documents about diagnoses relied on by plaintiffs in MDL 875.
• Kurns v. AW Chesterton (2009). The court granted summary judgment to Railroad Friction Products Corp. and Viad Corp. against Mrs. Corson, holding her state-law tort claims preempted by the Boiler Inspection Act, and declined to follow the state court's earlier denial of summary judgment.
• AstenJohnson v. Columbia Cas. Co. (2007). After a bench trial, the court ruled for Columbia Casualty and American Insurance and against AstenJohnson: the asbestosis exclusion barred coverage for all asbestos-related claims, laches barred the suit against Columbia, and the 1982 policies carried single aggregate limits with no duty to defend under the excess policies.
• Chicano v. General Electric Company (2004). The court denied General Electric's motion for summary judgment, finding genuine fact issues on duty to warn, causation and the government contractor defense, and granted plaintiff's motion to substitute Linda Chicano as executrix and amend the complaint.
• Hutchinson v. AP Green Industries, Inc. (2004). The court granted summary judgment to Garlock, the employer, because New Jersey's workers' compensation exclusive remedy barred the estate's common law suit; the estate lost against Garlock.
• Georgine v. Amchem Products, Inc. (1994). The court granted the Center for Claims Resolution (CCR) defendants' motion and preliminarily enjoined class members who had not opted out from bringing or pursuing asbestos injury or death claims against CCR defendants in any other court.
• Zenson v. Owens Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1993). The court granted Garlock's motion for a directed verdict and Owens Corning Fiberglas's motion for judgment as a matter of law at the close of plaintiff's case, ruling for the defendants because plaintiff did not prove exposure to their products.
• Ierardi v. Lorillard, Inc. (1991). The court granted Lorillard's and Hollingsworth & Vose's motions to dismiss plaintiffs' continuing duty to warn claim, ruling that evidence of H & V's knowledge of asbestos dangers after 1957 was irrelevant.
• Eagle-Picher Industries, Inc. v. US (1987). The court denied the United States' motion to dismiss Eagle-Picher's Federal Tort Claims Act contribution claim, and granted the United States' alternative request to certify the legal question to the Third Circuit for interlocutory appeal.
• Lowe v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1985). The district court denied the defendants' motions for summary judgment on limitations grounds, ruling that a jury must decide when Lowe learned he had an asbestos-related disease, and so allowed the Lowe estate's claims to go forward.
• Colombo v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1984). The court granted the United States' motion to dismiss Pittsburgh-Corning's third-party complaint on all claims except the sixth claim (negligence as vessel owner), which survived, and applied the same ruling to the Raymark and Eagle-Picher motions for leave to file similar complaints.
• Amader v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1982). The court granted plaintiff Thomas Amader's motion for partial summary judgment in part, barring Pittsburgh-Corning from relitigating whether Unibestos was defective between 1962 and 1968, but denied the motion on whether Unibestos was a substantial factor in causing his injuries.
• Neal v. Carey Canadian Mines, Ltd. (1982). The court denied all post-trial motions (judgment n.o.v. and new trial) by both plaintiffs and defendants, leaving the jury's liability and damages verdicts in place, including the finding that George Neal's claim was time-barred.
• Amader v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1981). The court denied the Amaders' motion to file a third amended complaint adding an emotional distress claim, ruling in favor of Johns-Manville and the other defendants.
• Carbonaro v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1981). The federal court granted Owens-Corning Fiberglas's motion for summary judgment, holding the plaintiffs' asbestos suit barred by the prior state-court judgment for the defendants, so the plaintiffs lost.
• Tysenn v. Johns-Manville Corp. (1981). The district court granted Owens-Illinois summary judgment on Veronica Tysenn's fear-of-disease claim, on Eagle-Picher's and Pacor's cross-claims, and on Anthony Tysenn's claims to the extent the Pennsylvania Occupational Disease Act made compensation his exclusive remedy. It put off deciding whether the dual capacity doctrine applied.
• Grabowski v. Turner & Newall (1980). The court granted summary judgment for the defendant asbestos suppliers in the DaMato, Lindahl, Saylor and Pearson cases as time-barred, and denied it in the Grabowski, Gravatt and Marincola cases because of factual gaps.

U.S. District Court, Middle District of Pennsylvania

• Gorton v. Warren Pumps, LLC (2023). The district court granted Warren Pumps' motion for summary judgment on all claims, ruling against Mrs. Gorton because the government contractor defense barred her product claims and the fraudulent concealment claim failed.