Asbestos

Cases

• Won a jury defense verdict for Foster Wheeler in a three-week asbestos trial in federal court in Massachusetts. The plaintiff—a sympathetic Navy widow represented by a high-profile asbestos plaintiff firm—asked for $20 million in compensatory damages and $43 million in punitive damages.
• Helped draft a successful motion for summary judgment in an asbestos case in federal court in Utah involving claims of gross negligence, breach of implied warranty, false representation, inadequate warning, and strict liability.
• Won a complete defense verdict in a 12-day wrongful death mesothelioma trial for Pneumo Abex LLC in federal court in North Carolina.
• Represent Michelin as national coordinating counsel for toxic tort litigation.
• Won exclusion via Daubert challenge of a star medical-causation expert—twice—in two living mesothelioma cases in California and North Carolina federal court.
• Won walk-away dismissal with no money paid for a national cosmetics company in a talc case with 78 defendants in Denver District Court. The plaintiff claimed that asbestos-contaminated talc in the client's products caused his mesothelioma.
• Won summary judgment for General Electric in a seven-figure mesothelioma case in plaintiff-friendly Ramsay County, Minnesota. The win came less than a month before trial, and marks WTO's second asbestos victory of 2021 in this challenging jurisdiction.
• Won a defense verdict for Pneumo Abex LLC as co-counsel in a three-week asbestos wrongful death trial in Pierce County, Washington. Due to COVID restrictions, the trial was held in a converted gymnasium in a juvenile detention facility and livestreamed across the country.
• Won dismissal for a Colorado-based manufacturer in an asbestos product liability case in the plaintiff-friendly "judicial hellhole" of St. Clair County, Illinois. WTO asserted jurisdictional defenses at the pleading stage and later won dismissal after the plaintiff's deposition.
• Won for Foster Wheeler in an asbestos failure to warn case involving the government contractor defense. The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court following WTO's arguments that evidence set forth by Foster Wheeler was sufficient to demonstrate a colorable defense establishing federal jurisdiction.
• Won for Foster Wheeler in an asbestos failure to warn case involving the government contractor defense. The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded to the district court following WTO's arguments in this matter of first impression.
• During the appeal of an adverse verdict in a multimillion-dollar trial in which jurors were given the wrong instruction, plaintiffs offered to settle 11 mesothelioma cases for six figures total, just to get WTO out of ongoing litigation involving other defendants.
• Obtained midtrial settlement—for less than the cost of defense—for Foster Wheeler in a trial that went to an eight-figure verdict against the other defendant. The plaintiff simply wanted WTO out of the case.
• Obtained four-figure midtrial settlement for Dana Corp. as plaintiff closed its case in Cook County, IL.
• Obtained summary judgment for General Electric Company in an asbestos liability case in the U.S.D.C. for the District of Wyoming.
• Brought in just three weeks before jury selection, WTO won a complete defense verdict for Dana Corporation in an asbestos wrongful-death trial in Philadelphia.
• Won a jury verdict in Cook County, Illinois, for General Electric in an asbestos duty to warn case involving power plant land turbines.
• Won a defense jury verdict for Leslie Controls, the sole remaining defendant at trial after other defendants settled. A jury deliberated for just 20 minutes before deciding our client was not liable for the plaintiff's mesothelioma.
• Won a defense jury verdict for Foster Wheeler in the first asbestos wrongful death case tried to a verdict in Iowa in over 10 years.
• Negotiated five-figure settlement for GE during Phase 2 of a reverse bifurcated trial in which the plaintiff won Phase 1 but was awarded only 4.2% of demand. The settlement was less than 1% of the demand in Phase 2.
• Won defense verdicts in simultaneous trials for Foster Wheeler in Los Angeles, CA, and Iowa City, IA.
• Won a defense verdict after five weeks of trial in Massachusetts in a living mesothelioma case, the first asbestos case tried to verdict in Boston in 10 years.
• Won the first asbestos wrongful death defense verdict for General Electric in Madison County, IL, one of the top "judicial hellholes" for corporate America as featured in The Wall Street Journal.
• Tried an asbestos wrongful death case to a hung jury in Cleveland. The plaintiff never retried the case.
• Obtained judgment not withstanding verdict in a $9 million mesothelioma trial in California.
• Won summary judgment motions in many jurisdictions, including briefing and arguing in an MDL in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on a complex issue concerning the government contractor defense as it applies to equipment manufacturers in asbestos litigation, potentially impacting hundreds or even thousands of similar cases currently pending before the panel.