Friable Thoughts

Monday, March 31, 2008

Raw Asbestos Fiber (Still) a Product for Product Liability Actions...

...at least in the state of California. GARZA v. ASBESTOS CORP. LTD.
reaffirms this somewhat unremarkable holding. Looking at the opinion, one wonders why it was published as the defendant asbestos fiber supplier raised all the same arguments that they had lost in previous decisions.

For the plaintiff's lawyers, identifying a raw asbestos supplier is hard because it's not that easy to identify whose fibers are in a finished product when the lawsuit is filed decades after the exposure. Even if you can identify the product manufacturer, figuring out who supplied them the fiber for a particular product is hard since manufacturers often used multiple fiber suppliers. Now, if someone is handing raw fiber, it's much easier but most of the time, the fiber is incorporated into a finished product.