Quoted from http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/southeast/2011/05/24/186115.htm

Carbide Asks Mississippi Judge to Nix $322M Asbestos Verdict

May 24, 2011

Union Carbide Corp. has asked a Mississippi judge to throw out a $322 million asbestos verdict and, at the same time, remove himself from presiding over the case any longer.

Attorneys for Union Carbide said Circuit Judge Eddie H. Bowen neglected to notify defense lawyers that his parents had been involved in similar asbestos litigation and had settled a case against Union Carbide.

On May 4, a jury awarded $300 million in punitive damages and $22 million in actual damages to Thomas C. Brown, who claimed he had inhaled asbestos dust while mixing drilling mud sold and manufactured by Chevron Phillips Chemical Co. and Union Carbide.

The jury award is expected to be appealed to the Mississippi Supreme Court.

Allen Hosselly, a Dallas attorney who represented Brown, said last Wednesday that he felt both the plaintiff and defense were treated fairly by the judge during the trial. He said if there was some conflict involving the judge the defense “didn’t raise it until after the verdict came down.”

After the May 4 verdict, Hossley said the jury found the companies liable for defectively designing their product and failing to provide an adequate warning to workers. He said Brown has asbestosis and requires oxygen 24 hours a day.

In a statement, Union Carbide said Bowen made “offhand comments” during the trial about how his father might have been exposed to asbestos at Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula. Union Carbide said it Howard J. Bowen, identified as the judge’s father, had sued Union Carbide and others in 1989 and 1992.

Bowen, according to the motion, was a practicing attorney when his father and mother sued Union Carbide seeking $1 million for emotional distress, and at least one case is still outstanding. Union Carbide settled with the elder Bowens.

Quoted from http://www.sunherald.com/2011/05/06/3090633/jury-awards-man-322m-in-uss-largest.html

 

Jury awards man $322M in U.S.’s largest asbestos verdict

By Charlotte Graham – Laurel Leader-Call

Friday, May. 06, 2011

RALEIGH — A Smith County jury has awarded a Brookhaven man the single largest plaintiff’s asbestos verdict in United States history.

In a case against Chevron Phillips Chemical and Union Carbide Corp., Thomas “Tony” Brown Jr. was awarded $322 million for future medical expenses, pain and suffering, and punitive damages.

Brown, 48, who worked in the oil fields of Mississippi from 1979 to the mid-’80s, was diagnosed with asbestosis and is on oxygen 24 hours a day. Asbestosis is a lung disease caused by asbestos exposure that induces lung scarring and shortness of breath, which worsens over time.

Brown had worked as a roughneck, mixing drilling mud on drilling rigs in Mississippi and offshore in the Gulf of Mexico. Allen Hossley, one of his attorneys, said, “Brown inhaled asbestos dust while mixing drilling mud sold by CP Chem and manufactured by Union Carbide. Although the asbestos was known to cause cancer and lung disease, CP Chem and Union Carbide continued to market these almost 100 percent pure asbestos products long after they knew the dangers.”

The jury found CP Chem and Union Carbide liable to Brown for defectively designing their product and failure to provide an adequate warning.

Brown could not read or write when he started working in oil fields at age 16, and defendants argued because Brown couldn’t read, he didn’t deserve protection under Mississippi’s statue requiring defendants to warn the oil-field workers about the dangers of their asbestos products.

“The jury’s verdict made it clear that the people of Mississippi think that everyone, including the young men entering the work force that can’t read, deserve equal protection under Mississippi law,” said Dawn Smith, another of Brown’s attorneys.

Quoted from http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2011/04/13/landmark-asbestos-ruling-insurance-firms-urged-to-do-the-right-thing-and-pay-up-86908-23058016/

Landmark asbestos ruling: Insurance firms urged to ‘do the right thing’ and pay up

Apr 13 2011 Keith Mcleod

A thousand Scots victims of a lung condition caused by asbestos yesterday won a landmark legal fight to get compensation.

But in the five years it has taken Scottish judges to overturn a UK legal ruling, 40 people who had pleural plaques have died.

They will never see a payout of around s10,000 which has been denied to them by the UK legal system and the big insurance companies.

Last night, insurance chiefs – who have fought the case tooth and nail – pledged to take it all the way to the UK Supreme Court.

But one of the relatives involved pleaded: “We were confident the Scottish courts would do the right thing. I can only now appeal to these insurance companies also to do the right thing.”

[Article continues at original source]

Quoted from http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-04-07/pfizer-offers-quigley-beer-building-for-asbestos-claims.html

Pfizer Offers Quigley Beer Building for Asbestos Claims

By Tiffany Kary

 

April 7 (Bloomberg) — Pfizer Inc., the world’s largest drugmaker, will contribute assets including a 281,581-square- foot building leased to a brewery to help its bankrupt, non- operating Quigley unit pay asbestos claims.

Quigley’s sixth outline of a plan to reorganize, filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan yesterday, also would require Pfizer to forgive a secured claim of $86 million, a bankruptcy loan of $12.6 million and unsecured claims of $33 million. The drugmaker would also contribute $81 million in insurance proceeds, according to court papers.

“Pfizer will pay $42 million to acquire a commercial property consisting of an approximately 281,581 square foot building on approximately 12 acres of land,” according to court papers. The building is leased to a distributor for “a leading brewery company,” the filing said.

The lease will produce net income of $1.9 million for the first year of the lease, with the amount increasing over time, the papers said. The location of the building and name of the beer company aren’t specified.

[Article continues at original source]

Quoted from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-22/pfizer-reaches-asbestos-settlement-that-may-end-quigley-unit-s-bankruptcy.html

Pfizer, Quigley Seek Court Approval of Asbestos Settlement

By Tiffany Kary – Mar 22, 2011 4:24 PM ET

Pfizer Inc. (PFE), the world’s largest drugmaker, reached a settlement with asbestos claimants that may bring an end to its Quigley unit’s seven-year-old bankruptcy case.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stuart Bernstein refused to allow Quigley to exit Chapter 11 court protection in September, saying Pfizer had manipulated the bankruptcy process to benefit itself. Pfizer and a committee of asbestos claimants entered into an agreement on March 20 that may resolve their dispute over claims, according to court papers filed yesterday in Manhattan.

The accord “resolves the legal and equitable issues that existed under that plan, including enhancing distributions for current claimants and future demand holders, improving reorganized Quigley’s long-term feasibility, and rectifying concerns regarding good faith,” lawyers for Quigley wrote.

[Article continues at original source]

Quoted from http://www.baltimoresun.com/dp-nws-asbestos-verdict-20110317,0,4639148.story

Newport News jury hands down $25 million verdict against Exxon in asbestos case

The jury verdict will be reduced to $17.5 million, and Exxon is expected to appeal

By Peter Dujardin, pdujardin@dailypress.com | 247-4749

5:32 p.m. EDT, March 17, 2011

NEWPORT NEWS— A Newport News Circuit Court jury on Thursday hit oil giant Exxon Mobil with a $25 million verdict in an asbestos lawsuit brought by a former shipyard worker — among the largest jury verdicts ever handed down in a Virginia personal injury case.

Rubert “Bert” Minton, 72, of the Carrollton section of Isle of Wight County, was a repair supervisor on commercial vessels at Newport News Shipbuilding between 1966 and 1977, and had previously worked there for seven years as a ship fitter in new construction.

During his time at the shipyard, Minton worked on 17 Exxon commercial oil tankers then being repaired.

Decades later, he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a deadly asbestos-related cancer that doctors said he got from breathing billions of asbestos fibers while at the yard. He has a life expectancy of about two more years and faces a painful death, his lawyer said. He sued Exxon in late 2009.

After a nearly three-week trial in Newport News Circuit Court before Judge Timothy Fisher, the seven-member jury began deliberating Wednesday morning, reaching a verdict Thursday morning.

The jury awarded Minton $12 million in compensatory damages, $12.5 million in punitive damages, and $430,961 in medical expenses, plus interest.

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