Man died from cancer related to asbestos exposure — $3,450,000 verdict

Type of action: Products liability, asbestos

Injuries alleged: Mesothelioma death

Name of case: Katcham, Administrator of the Estate of James C. Katcham, Deceased v. John Crane Inc.

Court: Newport News Circuit Court

Case no.: Cl2202484P-00

Tried before: Jury

Name of judge or mediator: Judge Christopher R. Papile

Date resolved: 10/9/2024

Demand: $900,000

Verdict or settlement: Verdict

Amount: $3,450,000

Attorneys for plaintiff: Robert R. Hatten, Hugh B. McCormick III, Geoffrey R. Grau and Adam M. Hawks, Newport News; Nathan D. Finch, Washington, D.C.

Description of case: The evidence proved that John Crane, Inc., an international supplier of asbestos-containing gaskets and packing, was responsible for James Katcham’s death because the company failed to provide any warnings or safety instructions with the asbestos gaskets and packings they sold to DuPont between 1961 and 1979, when Katcham was employed there as a millwright. The jury found that John Crane had breached its implied warranty of safety by selling unreasonably dangerous products without warning to users of those products.

The evidence showed that John Crane was aware of asbestosis beginning in the 1930s when it was required to provide worker’s compensation insurance for its own employees for asbestosis, that it installed elaborate ventilation systems at its plant in the 1940s, and that it offered face masks to its employees beginning in the 1940s. A public health historian testified that mesothelioma, a uniformly fatal cancer caused only by asbestos exposure, had been well known to the scientific community since 1960 and, in 1972, the Illinois Pollution Control Board provided detailed information about mesothelioma to John Crane, including that minimal exposure to asbestos could cause this disease.

Plaintiff relied upon a six-page dying declaration of the decedent which confirmed his routine and frequent use of John Crane’s asbestos products from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s. A coworker confirmed that John Crane’s asbestos gaskets were routinely and frequently used by the millwrights at DuPont. Plaintiff’s expert Dr. John Maddox, who has seen over 500 asbestos-induced mesothelioma cases in Newport News, testified that Katcham’s exposure to John Crane’s asbestos gaskets and packing products was sufficient to cause mesothelioma. John Crane contended the asbestos in its products was encapsulated, but the capacity of John Crane’s products to release high levels of otherwise invisible asbestos dust and fibers was established by plaintiff’s expert materials scientist, Dr. William Longo, who used Tyndall lighting and videotapes, to show that the intended uses of John Crane’s asbestos gaskets and packing created millions of airborne asbestos fibers that could not be seen by the worker.

Defendant’s expert testified that it would take 1,000 years of exposure to John Crane’s products to cause mesothelioma. His testimony was contradicted by multiple scientific and medical organizations which have concluded that mesothelioma can occur from minimal and brief exposures. John Henshaw, the former head of OSHA, also testified that exposures to asbestos gaskets and packing were insufficient to create a risk of mesothelioma. That testimony was likewise directly contradicted by multiple medical and scientific organizations including OSHA’s own published opinion that mesothelioma can be caused by one or two days of asbestos exposure. In closing argument, counsel for John Crane attempted to discredit plaintiff’s exposure evidence, but the evidence of the plaintiff’s decedent and his coworker was supported by documents from DuPont demonstrating that John Crane was an approved vendor of crocidolite asbestos gaskets until 1973 and multiple asbestos-containing packing products until the 1980s. Plaintiff’s counsel has successfully prosecuted similar claims against John Crane to a jury verdict in a dozen consecutive cases.

Robert R. Hatten, counsel for the plaintiff, provided case information.

[024-T-135]