Reviving a wrongful death asbestos lawsuit filed by the daughter of a U.S. Navy shipyard worker, a California appeals court has reversed a San Francisco Supreme Court’s ruling of summary judgment in favor of the defendant, Crane Co. The appeals court’s decision will send the plaintiff’s case back to trial court.
Originally, the claim was filed by Robert Gottshall, who, after developing mesothelioma, sued Crane and 17 other defendants in 2010 for asbestos exposure. Mr. Gottshall passed away a few months after filing the claim, which led to his daughter, Kimbra Gottshall, taking the reins as the plaintiff.
When Ms. Gottshall sued six additional entities, the case was transferred to a Pennsylvania federal court, which had previously granted summary judgment in favor of General Dynamics Corp, a defendant in a similar case involving Navy vessels and asbestos exposure. The San Francisco Supreme Court used the Pennsylvania court’s ruling to determine that Crane Co. was not liable for Mr. Gottshall’s illness because Mr. Gottshall was considered a “sophisticated user,” meaning he should have understood the dangers of working in proximity to asbestos-containing materials. The designation “sophisticated user” [of asbestos] applied to the U.S. Navy in the General Dynamics case, so the San Francisco Supreme Court extended that to Mr. Gottshall’s claim. This, the appeals court ruled, is where the lower court erred.
“[The Pennsylvania federal court’s] application of California law was wrong, as any reading of the evolution of California’s sophisticated user defense demonstrates,” the judges wrote in their opinion.
Richard Martin Grant, counsel for the Gottshall family, agreed with the appeals court’s decision. “A foreign court can’t decide on an important question of California law,” he reiterated. “The Pennsylvania judge predicted California would adopt a sophisticated intermediary defense and applied it. He was wrong.”
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