Summarizes where PFAS chemicals may be found, diseases that may be caused by PFAS, and who is suing and who is being sued for purported PFAS exposure.
Analyzes several Illinois and Missouri cases that illustrate the differences in how Illinois and Missouri interpret strict liability for products.
Recommends best practices for adhering to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Final Rule on Civil Money Penalties for Medicare Secondary Payer Reporting. Includes information on safe harbors, penalty amounts, and timing of their assessment.
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.
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 the possible environmental, legislative, and litigation after-effects of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment of February 2023.
Examination of legislation passed in North Dakota, West Virginia, and Tennessee limiting the over-naming of defendants in toxic tort lawsuits
Illinois court grants summary judgment in mesothelioma case based on Maryland workers’ compensation exclusive remedy
In Campbell v. General Electric, 2018 IL App (1st) 173051, the Appellate Court of Illinois, First District, recently reversed the Cook County Circuit Court’s finding of personal jurisdiction over General Electric (“GE”) in an asbestos case. In directing that GE be dismissed from the case due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, the court struck down the plaintiff’s claims of general jurisdiction, specific jurisdiction, consent jurisdiction and jurisdiction by necessity. And in so doing, the Court followed the principles set forth by the United States Supreme Court ...
Recently, after extensive oral arguments, HeplerBroom Partner Josh Schumacher convinced the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin to bar several Plaintiffs’ experts from offering specific causation or industrial hygiene opinions pursuant to Daubert v. Merrel. Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993) and its progeny. The Daubert hearing was conducted by United States District Court Judge Pamela Pepper.
In Ahnert v. CBS Corporation, et al., Plaintiff alleged that toxic exposure to asbestos at numerous locations and to a multitude of products ...
The Madison County Circuit Court recently granted defendant U.S. Steel Corporation’s Motion for Summary Judgment, in the matter of Taylor v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp., a/k/a Buffalo Pumps, Inc., et al., Case No. 15 L 652. This was a wrongful-death case arising from alleged exposure to asbestos on U.S. Steel’s premises. A key question was whether U.S. Steel, as the premises owner, owed a duty under negligence law in Illinois to the spouse of an employee of an independent contractor who had worked at its facilities.
The decedent, Cheryl Taylor, developed and died from mesothelioma ...
Recently, in the matter of Tate v. Pecora Corp., Case No. 16-L-1399, the Madison County Circuit Court has dismissed a Plaintiff’s asbestos complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction pursuant to M.M. ex rel. Meyers v. GlaxoSmithKline LLC, 61 N.E. 3d 1026 (Ill. App. 2016). In GlaxoSmithKline, the Chicago-based Illinois First Appellate District ruled that plaintiffs had made a prima facie showing that their claims arose directly from, or were related to, GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) “purposeful activities” in Illinois, that GSK failed to rebut this prima facie showing, and ...
Garretson Resolution Group (Garretson) conducted a meeting in January, 2015 attended by HeplerBroom, other members of the asbestos defense bar, and counsel for asbestos plaintiffs. At the meeting, it introduced its new Asbestos Malignancy Alternative Resolution Process (which Garretson refers to as the AMP). Garretson stated that several years ago, it reached an agreement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pertaining to settlement of non-malignant asbestos injury cases. Garretson said that this earlier agreement was designed to streamline the ...
Judge John Tharp of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently granted a motion for summary judgment in favor of Ameren Illinois in the case of Peter Stanley v. Ameren Illinois Company, et al., 1:12-cv-06073, involving a 76-year-old engineer who died of mesothelioma.
Peter Stanley spent his career as a boiler engineer for Babcock & Wilcox. From 1961 to 1967, he worked as a field start-up engineer, commissioning new boilers at numerous industrial sites throughout the Midwest. No defendant disputed that Peter Stanley was exposed to asbestos from thermal ...
In Issue 48 of the Midwest Toxic Release (June 2012), we encouraged more investigation into the causes of non-smoking lung cancer cases as the number of lung cancer filings was rising. Over a year later, the number of lung cancer cases filed in 2013 in Madison County and the City of St. Louis has exceeded the number of lung cancer cases filed in both jurisdictions in all of 2012. As of December 16, 2013, in Madison County, 581 lung cancer cases had been filed. In 2012, in Madison County, 488 lung cancer cases were filed and 153 lung cancer cases were filed in 2011. Lung cancer cases in the City of ...
