Analyzes several Illinois and Missouri cases that illustrate the differences in how Illinois and Missouri interpret strict liability for products.
Clarifies how secondary/take-home asbestos exposure cases differ significantly from typical occupational exposure cases; offers key strategies asbestos defense counsel can use in litigating these high-value, high-stakes cases.
Analyzes a California appellate court ruling that corporate representative witnesses can only testify about matters within their personal knowledge or based upon admissible evidence.
Announcement of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)'s Final Rule on civil money penalties for failure to properly report claims of Medicare beneficiaries.
Explains changes made to appropriate venues for challenging Illinois administrative rules, executive orders, and constitutionality of state laws. Includes pros and cons of those changes.
Examines recent court decisions disallowing industrial hygienists’ opinions as hearsay. Reports lacked independent opinions; were based on published works
Evaluates the methodology EPA used to assess the risks associated with using chrysotile asbestos in removing and replacing sheet gaskets and brake linings
Missouri legislators have proposed three bills that would make substantive and procedural changes to lawsuits filed for damages related to asbestos exposure
Clients who are new to asbestos litigation often ask why so many defendants are named in asbestos lawsuits. The person usually says to me, “it sounds like they just name every company which they believe used asbestos at some point and then they see what sticks. Isn’t this a huge cost on the system and a burden on companies that had no connection to the plaintiff?”
These questions and others were recently on the minds of Iowa legislators. The Iowa House and Senate passed a bill requiring that plaintiffs who are seeking damages relating to asbestos and silica exposures provide more ...
In 2020, the Missouri General Assembly continued its efforts toward tort reform related to asbestos trust claim transparency related to civil litigation. As explained below, S.B. 575 sought to make clear from the beginning of a lawsuit the scope and extent of asbestos trust fund (“Trust”) claims available to a plaintiff and to allow evidence related to such claims to be admissible at trial.
S.B. 575, sponsored by Senator Bill Eigel (St. Charles County), would have imposed substantive and procedural requirements for lawsuits filed for damages related to asbestos exposure. The ...
In recent years, Missouri courts, and St. Louis City courts in particular, have been getting attention for their large toxic tort verdicts. The legislature is responding. While Missouri’s official nickname is the “Show Me State,” some legislators have been referring to it as the “Sue Me State” to promote new tort reform measures. One such reform measure is Missouri’s Asbestos Bankruptcy Transparency Act, introduced in the 2018 session as House Bill 1645. Similar bills were introduced in 2017 and 2016 but did not become law.
Missouri is not the first state to seek ...
Thirty-six billion dollars. That's the value of assets in all asbestos-related bankruptcy trusts, according to the United States Government Accountability Office (and that's 2011 numbers!).[1] With so much money sitting idly by, as the old adage goes, the money is talking. When money talks, the United States Congress listens (that should be another adage).
"Asbestos litigation has been the longest-running mass tort litigation in U.S. history and arose out of millions of Americans' lengthy and widespread occupational exposure to asbestos[.]"[2] As asbestos litigation enters ...
On June 27, 2014, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, held that a plaintiff’s common-law negligence action against her decedent’s employer was not barred by the exclusive remedy provision of Illinois’ workers’ compensation statutes[1] because her work comp claim would have been non-compensable as untimely under the law’s repose provisions.
The Decedent was allegedly exposed to asbestos at a plant owned by defendant Ferro Engineering (“Ferro”) from 1966 to 1970. Folta v. Ferro Engineering, 2014 IL App (1st) 123219, ¶ 1, (Ill. App. Ct. 1st Dist. June ...
On October 11, 2013, the Illinois Appellate Court for the Fourth District, which includes 30 counties in central Illinois, affirmed summary judgment orders for two defendants. In Bowles v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., the Plaintiff, Decedent’s surviving spouse, brought lung cancer claims against Owens-Illinois and John Crane.
The cancer was allegedly caused by his exposure to asbestos while aboard the USS Floyd B. Parks. The Decedent was on board the Parks for less than two years. Additionally, the Decedent only worked in the ship’s radio room. The Plaintiff introduced deposition ...
