ExxonMobil Loses Final Appeal of Mesothelioma Claim
The road to justice can be long and tortuous for mesothelioma victims and their families, but for many, victory eventually comes. Warren Wright’s family lost him to the rare, asbestos-related disease in 2015, and it took until this past summer for their legal case against ExxonMobil to finally come to an end.
ExxonMobil Filed Multiple Appeals of Jury’s Mesothelioma Verdict
According to the original personal injury claim that Mr. Wright’s family filed, he was exposed to asbestos by several different companies while working at their oil refineries. But Shell Oil, Co., Texaco, and 3M all settled the case out of court, leaving only ExxonMobil as a defendant. When the jury heard the details of Mr. Wright’s exposure and subsequent death, they awarded the family $4 million in damages.
Unhappy with that result, ExxonMobil filed an appeal of the verdict, arguing that the judge should have provided the jury with a specific instruction about Mr. Wright’s knowledge of asbestos’ dangers. The company claimed that the verdict would have been different had that instruction been given. Though the appeals court agreed to lower the verdict amount to $2.2 million based on settlements the family had arranged with the other defendants, they denied the company’s request to overturn the decision, saying that the trial court judge had properly exercised his discretion in deciding against the instruction.
ExxonMobil Takes Mesothelioma Decision to Washington State Supreme Court
In a final effort to evade liability for Mr. Wright’s mesothelioma death, ExxonMobil asked the Washington State Supreme Court to overturn the lower court and appeals court’s decisions. Though the company asserted that the jury should have been instructed that Mr. Wright’s knowledge of the dangers of asbestos mitigated their liability, the Supreme Court disagreed, saying that the argument was difficult to reconcile with the appeals court’s ruling about the strength of the company’s argument. The family will be able to keep their hard-won compensation.
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