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  April 7, 2008
  Source:  WorkInjury.com
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CA/1:   Court Affirms $10+ Million in Punitives in Asbestos Case

This is another asbestos case just handed down by the First District Court of Appeal.

As with the other case reviewed this week (to read that one, which was unpublished, CLICK HERE), the Court had little sympathy for companies claiming ignorance of asbestos-related illnesses.

Noteworthy with this case, however, is (a) that it's certified for (partial) publication, thus citable and (b) that it deals with very hefty punitive damages -- 10 million dollars' worth to be exact!

This case is Garza v. Asbestos Corp..

At trial, a jury had awarded almost $1.58 million in compensatory damages, including loss of consortium, plus the $10 million in punitives.

The company's main focus on appeal, obviously, was on the size of and justification for the punitives. The defendant's arguments included that the punitives were excessive, that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that the company's conduct was "despicable" and that the financial evidence presented regarding the company's earnings didn't justify the size of the award.

Oh contraire, said the appellate court. It noted that by the late 1940s and early 1950s information on medical problems related to asbestos began to appear in non-medical publications. Regarding the company's claimed ignorance of the problem and its other arguments, the opinion continues:

"Against this chronology of mounting medical evidence and increasing public awareness of the link between exposure to asbestos and lung disease, the jury was presented with the following information about [the company]:   [It] was a member of the following trade organizations:   Asbestos Information Association, the Asbestos Information Association of North America and the Quebec Asbestos Mining Association. [It] never conducted or commissioned any tests or studies on ambient asbestos dust levels at any location or job site where asbestos-containing products were installed, removed or utilized. [It] admitted that in the 1940s it was aware there is an association between asbestos exposure and disease in human beings...

"The jury was instructed that to obtain punitive damages plaintiffs had to show by clear and convincing evidence that [the company's] 'conduct was despicable and was done with a willful and knowing disregard of the rights and safety of another.'...

"The punitive award is just over six times greater than the compensatory award. This falls well within the range of single digit multipliers approved as constitutionally permissible by the high court in State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company v. Campbell (State Farm) (2003) 538 U.S. 408 , 425 [noting that "[s]ingle-digit multipliers are more likely to comport with due process, while still achieving the State's goals of deterrence and retribution, than awards with" higher ratios].

"In sum, considering that the patchy and limited nature of the financial evidence presented to the jury was due to [the company] itself, we conclude the jury's punitive damages determination was not excessive, but rather a rational attempt to arrive at an appropriate punishment for what we acknowledged above as [defendant's] reprehensible conduct."...

The full judgment was affirmed.

To read the "partially" published opinion,

PLEASE CLICK HERE.