Product Liability and Asbestos

Along with several other serious and challenging illnesses, mesothelioma is almost exclusively caused by exposure to asbestos. With scientific evidence of the dangers of the mineral combined with documents proving asbestos companies knew of the harm it could cause, those who’ve been diagnosed with these diseases can file lawsuits against the company under product liability laws. 

Understanding Product Liability Law

Product liability is an area of law that indicates that companies have a duty to ensure that the products they manufacture, distribute, or sell are safe to use, and hold them responsible when their products cause harm. If a product isdefective, dangerous, or lacks proper warnings, and someone is injured or becomes ill as a result, the company can be held legally and financially accountable for the damage it causes.[1]

There are three main types of product liability claims:

1. Design Defects – when the product is inherently unsafe because of the way it was designed.
2. Manufacturing Defects – when mistakes during production make the product dangerous.
3. Failure to Warn (Marketing Defects) – when companies don’t provide adequate warnings or instructions about known risks.

Unlike criminal proceedings that require proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” the standard of proof in these cases is generally whether there is a “preponderance of evidence” or “more likely than not” that the company or companies is guilty.  

Product Liability in Asbestos Cases

For mesothelioma victims and others suffering from asbestos-related diseases, product liability claims represent a direct path to holding manufacturers accountable. Unlike workplace injury claims that typically focus on employer responsibility, product liability lawsuits focus on the companies that created, distributed, and sold the asbestos-containing materials that caused harm. This difference is important because many victims suffered occupational exposure through products manufactured by companies with no direct connection to their work environment.

Main Elements of Product Liability Claims

Every successful product liability lawsuit establishes three basic components that are each essential for proving a manufacturer’s or seller’s responsibility.[2]

1. Product Definition

The claim must involve a recognized “product” under legal standards. While products traditionally include tangible, movable items sold to consumers, courts have expanded this definition, so that for asbestos cases, products go beyond raw asbestos to include the full range of products and parts that included the carcinogenic material in their makeup. This includes insulation, floor tiles, cement products, automotive parts, textiles, and construction materials. 

2. Product Defect

Establishing that a product contains a defect is the foundation for a product liability claim. Manufacturers are not expected to insure against all possible injuries from their products, but they are responsible for injuries when their products fail to meet reasonable safety expectations. In asbestos litigation, this aspect of the case focuses on whether the product posed unreasonable dangers that exceeded what ordinary consumers would expect.

The challenge in establishing a defect in asbestos-containing products is that they generally functioned exactly as designed while at the same time posing deadly health risks. In these cases, the defect is the inherent danger of asbestos exposure combined with the manufacturer’s failure to address the known risks through design changes, warnings, or replacing the carcinogenic material with a safer alternative.

3. Proximate Causation

The final element of a product liability case is proving that the asbestos company’s product was the direct cause of the victim’s injuries. This means demonstrating both that the product was the cause of the harm (the victim wouldn’t have gotten sick with having been exposed to the defendant’s product) and that the asbestos company knew that the asbestos-related illness was a foreseeable consequence.

Categories of Product Defects in Asbestos Cases

Asbestos product liability claims typically fall into three categories, each of which addresses different aspects of how products can fall short of safety standards.

Manufacturing Defects

Manufacturing defects happen when production errors cause products to deviate from their intended specifications, making them more dangerous than designed. In asbestos cases, manufacturing defects might include:

• Contamination of products with higher concentrations of asbestos than specified
• Use of more hazardous asbestos types than called for in product design
• Failure to put dust control measures in place during production
• Inadequate quality control that allowed friable asbestos in products meant to contain bound fibers

These defects generally affect individual products or production runs rather than entire product lines. This is what separates them from design defects.

Design Defects

Design defects exist when entire product lines pose unreasonable dangers due to fundamental flaws. In cases involving asbestos products, design defects focus on whether manufacturers could have created safer alternatives without sacrificing the product’s utility or making it prohibitively expensive.

In most cases, juries are asked to determine whether a design defect exists using two tests:

Consumer Expectation Test: This asks whether the product’s dangers were greater than what ordinary consumers would reasonably expect. For asbestos-containing products marketed without warnings about the dangers of mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases, many courts find that consumers couldn’t have anticipated the severe risks that came with normal use.

Risk-Utility Test: This weighs which is greater: The costs of making products safer or the risk of injury if safety measures aren’t put in place. In asbestos claims, this question is specifically about whether companies could have used another, safer material in place of asbestos and what the cost would have been of using the other product.

Juries are asked to consider numerous elements, including:

• The availability of safer alternative materials
• The cost and feasibility of product redesign
• The severity of potential harm from asbestos exposure
• The utility of the product’s function

Many asbestos products fail the risk-utility test because safer alternatives did exist, but their manufacturers chose to continue using asbestos, prioritizing what they’d have to pay to make a change instead of the health of those using or exposed to their products. 

Warning Defects (Failure to Warn)

Warning defects, also called communication defects, occur when manufacturers fail to provide adequate instructions for safe use or warnings about hidden dangers. This is particularly important in asbestos lawsuits because so many manufacturers knew about asbestos health risks decades before informing users, but chose to remain silent so that they could continue earning profits through their sales.

Successful failure-to-warn claims in asbestos cases typically prove:

• The manufacturer knew or should have known about asbestos health risks
• The dangers weren’t known or obvious to ordinary users
• Adequate warnings could have prevented or reduced exposure
• The lack of warnings directly contributed to the victim being diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease.

When weighing whether a company failed to warn, juries are generally instructed that, if a warning has been given, it needed to be clear, prominent, and specific enough to allow users to make informed decisions.

Timing of Defects

Product liability law requires that defects exist at the time products leave the manufacturer’s or seller’s control. This is important in an asbestos case because decades can pass between the time that a product was originally sold and when the disease is diagnosed.

Victims diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease need to prove that:

• The asbestos-containing product was defective when it was originally manufactured or sold
• Handling or use that came after they sold the product didn’t create the dangerous condition
• Normal wear or aging did not change a safe product into a hazardous one

Proving Causation

Proving causation is the biggest challenge in asbestos product liability cases. The victim needs to prove both that the defendant’s product actually caused the victim’s illness (factual causation) and that the company should be held legally responsible for the harm they suffered (legal causation).

For factual causation, juries are asked to apply either the “but for” test (would the injury have occurred without the defendant’s product?) or the “substantial factor” test (was the defendant’s product a significant contributor to the harm?).

Factual causation is challenging to prove in asbestos cases for several reasons, including: 

• Multiple Exposures – Most mesothelioma victims are exposed to asbestos from numerous environments and locations throughout their lives, and this gives asbestos companies the opportunity to argue that other companies bear responsibility.
• Long Latency Periods – Asbestos diseases generally don’t begin to show symptoms until 20 to 50 years after exposure, making it much harder to identify specific products or timeframes responsible for illness.
• Level of Exposure: Even minimal asbestos exposure can cause mesothelioma, but proving which specific products contributed to an individual’s overall exposure burden requires detailed investigation and scientific analysis.

Legal causation examines whether holding the asbestos company liable serves sound public policy. Victims need to show that the asbestos company could have reasonably anticipated that harm could occur as a result of their product’s use, that there is a direct link between the product and the victim’s illness, and that making the asbestos company liable for the damage they caused is in the public interest. In asbestos cases, plaintiffs generally do this by showing that:

• Asbestos exposure is the known cause of mesothelioma
• Manufacturers knew of the health risks of asbestos exposure
• Holding manufacturers responsible when they ignore health risks in favor of profits discourages others from doing the same 
• It makes sense for those who profited from selling asbestos products to compensate those who were harmed by them for the damages they’ve suffered.

Overcoming Causation Challenges

When an experienced mesothelioma attorney is representing a victim in court, they use several different resources to establish causation, including: 

• Medical expert testimony from oncologists, pulmonologists, and occupational medicine specialists, who explain how asbestos causes disease and how the victim’s exposure history connects with diagnosis.
• Industrial hygiene experts go over the victim’s workplace history and testify about the known conditions they worked in, including exposure levels and sources. They often use company documents and scientific studies.
• Evidence identifying the asbestos company’s product that the victim worked with or around.  This evidence can include
• Employment records and job descriptions
• Product specifications and material safety data sheets
• Witness testimony from coworkers or supervisors
• Corporate documents showing product sales and distribution
• Scientific literature showing the decades of research establishing asbestos as a human carcinogen. 

Theories of Liability in Asbestos Product Cases

Asbestos product liability lawsuits are filed under multiple legal theories, allowing attorneys to present the strongest possible case for their clients.

Strict Product Liability

Strict liability holds manufacturers responsible for injuries caused by unreasonably dangerous products regardless of whether they acted negligently. This is effective in asbestos cases because:

• Victims don’t need to prove the manufacturer knew about asbestos health risks
• The focus shifts to whether the product posed an unreasonable danger or not
• Asbestos is inherently dangerous and linked to deadly diseases
• The asbestos products lacked adequate warnings about the health risks of exposure

Strict liability claims need to prove that the defendant manufactured, distributed, or sold a defective product that caused the victim’s injuries.

Breach of Warranty

Warranty claims focus on the asbestos company’s promises or representations about its product’s safety and performance. Two types of warranties apply to asbestos cases:

• Implied Warranty of Merchantability: This warranty promises that products are reasonably fit for their intended purpose. Asbestos products that cause disease when used normally breach this promise.
• Express Warranty: When manufacturers make specific claims about product safety, they create express warranties.

Misrepresentation or Fraud

Manufacturers and sellers have a duty to provide accurate information about their products. Misrepresentation claims against asbestos companies can be successful when companies:

• Made false statements about product safety
• Concealed known health risks from users
• Created misleading advertising that downplayed dangers
• Provided inaccurate technical information about proper use

Damages in Product Liability Cases

When a victim files a product liability lawsuit, there are several different types of damages they can request compensation for. These include:

Compensatory damages that pay for economic damages, including medical expenses, lost income and earnings capacity, pain and suffering, and loss of consortium.

Punitive damages are meant to punish particularly malicious or reckless conduct and to send a message to other companies not to act in the same way.  In asbestos cases, punitive damages are generally awarded when victims prove that the defendant knew about the health risks but kept them from users, continued selling asbestos-containing products despite finding safer alternatives, destroyed or concealed evidence that they knew about asbestos’s dangers, or repeatedly denied or minimized the health risks of their products.

An example of the use of the product liability theory in an asbestos case would be:

A shipyard worker was diagnosed with mesothelioma after working for over two decades with asbestos-containing insulation products manufactured by a company. Internal company documents showed that management knew by 1950 that asbestos caused lung disease and cancer, but continued manufacturing and selling the same products without warnings until 1985. The worker filed a product liability lawsuit claiming the insulation was defectively designed and inadequately warned.

The elements presented to the jury in the case included:

Product: The asbestos-containing insulation qualified as a product under product liability law.

Defect: The insulation suffered from both design defects (safer alternatives existed) and warning defects (no warnings were provided despite the known risk of mesothelioma).

Causation: Medical evidence showed that the worker’s mesothelioma came from his occupational asbestos exposure, and industrial hygiene experts identified the company’s products as significant contributors to his exposure.

The jury awarded $8 million in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages, finding that the company’s concealment of its products’ health risks justified additional punishment.

The Need for Experienced Legal Representation

Mesothelioma lawsuits are complex, and most asbestos companies have high-powered legal teams representing them. The best thing that a mesothelioma victim can do to get justice and the compensation they deserve is to work with an experienced asbestos attorney with specialized knowledge of product liability law and resources specific to asbestos. 

These legal professionals provide essential services, including:

• Investigating exposure histories and identifying the manufacturers that are responsible
• Collecting pertinent corporate documents and evidence of the company’s knowledge
• Access to medical and scientific experts with experience in proving asbestos illness causation
• Negotiating with asbestos companies and their insurance companies
• Representing your case in court

Choosing an attorney who specializes in asbestos litigation can make all the difference in winning your case and maximizing the compensation that you and your family receive.