PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania – In a case before the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, jurors handed up a liability verdict that awards $25.2 million in compensatory and punitive damages in three combined asbestos suits last week.

The three cases were combined in a reverse-bifurcated trial and heard by a jury under Judge James Murray Lynn. In two of the cases, the jury established that the potential damages are $12.6 million. Those cases were settled before the liability phase. If they had proceeded to the liability phase, the award amount could have approached $40 million for the combined cases.
In the third case, the jury awarded $18.2 million in punitive damages. The defendants in that case requested that Kentucky law be applied. That request would have reduced their liability. The judge agreed to the request.

Because the settlements in the other two cases are confidential, it’s not publicly known how much the plaintiffs will receive. Mesothelioma cases often rest on determining whether or not the asbestos containing products to which the plaintiffs were exposed were manufactured or distributed by the defendants, or whether the defendants could have prevented the exposure.
The estate of James Baccus, the one plaintiff whose case proceeded beyond the damages phase, will receive $7 million in compensatory damages and $18.2 million in punitive damages. In addition, there were several defendants in each case who settled prior to the damages phase of the trial. Those amounts are also not known publicly.

Baccus died of malignant mesothelioma. He worked around asbestos during his tenure in the U.S. Navy, which was served in Philadelphia. The suit alleges that the majority of his injuries were received in Kentucky, where he worked for American Synthetic Rubber. The defendants asked that Kentucky law be applied to the case, and the judge agreed. The jury awarded $7 million in compensatory damages, and apportioned the damages among three separate companies. The punitive damages were also apportioned among the companies, with Crane company being assessed $11.9 million of the shared verdict, and $6.3 million to be paid by Yarway company.

An attorney for the plaintiffs stated that it’s the first case in more than 20 years where he has seen a jury award punitive damages in an asbestos case. He said that the standard for applying punitive damages in Pennsylvania is much much higher than in Kentucky.

The defendants wanted Kentucky law applied because of the method by which liability is apportioned. It assigns an individual portion of liability to all defendants, including those who have settled before the liability phase. Under Pennsylvania law, all defendants share the damages equally.

The strategy, meant to reduce the liability carried by the three remaining defendants, backfired when the jury held all of the settled defendants zero percent responsible.

The defendants that settled before the compensatory damages phase of the trial were Ingersoll Rand, THAN, IMO/DeLaval, Westinghouse, Owens Illinois and Goulds Pumps.

Yarway and Crane Co. will most likely appeal the awards, and their attorneys believe they have a strong case on appeal.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 9th, 2008 at 9:08 am and is filed under Asbestos Litigation, Pennsylvania. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.