Asbestos-related wrongful death case reinstated
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A lower court erred in discounting an asbestos expert’s testimony, said a federal appeals court Wednesday in reinstating a wrongful death case.
Robert Hilt died of asbestos-related lung disease in August 2010, and his widow, Geraldine, filed suit against defendants including Clinton, New Jersey-based Foster Wheeler L.L.C., according to court papers in Geraldine Hilt v. Foster Wheeler Corp. et al.
In litigation filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco in 2011, Ms. Hilt said Mr. Hilt died of exposure to asbestos while working in shipyards in San Francisco, Vallejo and Alameda, California, among other locations.
The complex litigation was transferred to U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, which dismissed the case. It was then returned to California courts.
The case was reinstated on appeal by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals in San Francisco by a unanimous three-judge panel.
The ruling referred to testimony provided by Trabuco Canyon, California-based asbestos consultant Charles Ay. “The District Court erred in discounting Ay’s expert testimony on the ground that he lacked personal knowledge of the ships, boilers or insulation at issue, said the panel.
“Ay’s opinion that the boilers on the U.S.S. Bradley and U.S.S. Constellation were manufactured by Foster Wheeler, that the insulation supplied by Foster Wheeler for those boilers contained asbestos, and that at least some of the original asbestos-containing insulation was present in those boilers at the time Hilt was exposed to insulation dust was based on specialized knowledge … his extensive experience with asbestos-containing materials in naval ships, and facts and data in the record sufficient to support his opinion.
“Ay’s opinion was neither speculative nor inadmissible” under federal rules of evidence, said the opinion, in remanding the case for further proceedings.
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