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Asbestos Case Tracker

Real-Time Court Decisions and Other Developments in Asbestos Litigation.

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/ Punitive Damages, Verdict

N.Y. Jury Awards $12.25M in Environmental Asbestos Case against Vanderbilt

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Court: Supreme Court, St. Lawrence County

Plaintiff Bishop filed suit in St. Lawrence County’s Supreme Court in December 2022, alleging environmental exposure to asbestos when she lived in the vicinity of Vanderbilt Minerals LLC’s talc mine in northern New York.

Bishop lived in Balmat, less than a mile from the Vanderbilt mine, from 1964 to 1984. The mine was closed in 2008. Bishop passed away from mesothelioma in January 2023, and the estate continued the action, adding in a wrongful death claim.

The case went to trial and the jury found for the plaintiff, awarding $4.5 million for pain and suffering and $7.75 million for punitive damages.

The verdict is believed to be the first successful verdict in the United States alleging environmental exposure to asbestos and the largest asbestos verdict from a jury in St. Lawrence County.

Read the full decision here.