In December, a jury found against Plant Insulation in a San Francisco trial that involved three different decedents. The families of James Harris, William Hearn and George Wetch were awarded verdicts totaling $4.3 million dollars. In truly bad news for Plant Insulation, the jury found that defendant to be 59% to 79% "at fault" for the injuries, meaning that Plant Insulation will be liable for that percentage of the non-economic damages awarded in these cases.
Defendants in asbestos cases have long argued that consolidation of multiple Plaintiffs for trial is a procedure that results in prejudice to the defendants. While each of the individual verdicts were not particularly high (ranging from just over $850,000 to just over $2.1 million) the very large percentage of fault awarded against Plant would seem to be evidence of that prejudice.
