Appellate court reverses $10m asbestos judgment

On Tuesday June 10 a state Appellate Court reversed a $10 million verdict against the Ford Motor Company, saying the widower who had won the verdict had in fact had no grounds to sue the auto company. The 14th Court of Appeals issued the ruling after it had asked the Michigan Supreme Court to provide an opinion about whether family members representing Carolyn Miller, who died in 2000, had the right to sue the Ford Motor Company. Miller’s attorneys said that Carolyn Miller died at age 54 of mesothelioma after she was exposed to asbestos which her father transported home on his work clothes. Carolyn’s father, John Roland, worked at the Ford Rouge plant in Michigan between 1953 and 1964. His work involved relining and demolishing blast furnaces. John Roland and Glenn Miller sued the Ford Motor Company in 2001, claiming that Carolyn Miller’s death was wrongfully caused. The case was tried in 2004, and Carolyn’s family was awarded $10 million by a Brazoria County jury. The case was tried in Brazoria County because some of the original defendants, including the Dow Chemical Company, had operations based there. Most of the defendants in the case settled before it went to trial. Despite the fact that the trial was held in a Texas court, it was tried under Michigan law. The recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling, written by Justice Leslie Yates, reversed the $10 million verdict, and was a majority opinion. The ruling stated that Carolyn’s husband, Glenn Miller, had no right to sue the Ford Motor Company because Carolyn had never actually set foot on the company’s property to be exposed to asbestos. Therefore, the ruling said, the company “owed Miller no such duty.” In addition, the Appellate Court found that Roland, who in the original judgment had received $500,000 in damages for past and future pain and suffering, could not be awarded damages. The Supreme Court decision said that Roland’s injuries did not warrant a damages award. In the decision, Yates wrote, “The undisputed evidence shows only that Roland might get cancer in the future, and that is not a sufficient basis to support a recovery.” A spokesperson for the Ford Motor Company said the appellate decision was the right one. “Ms. Miller was never on Ford premises and any risk to her from her father’s work clothes was not known or foreseeable to Ford, and was not something that Ford could prevent since he worked many other places besides Ford premises, said spokesperson Marcey Evans. (Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News)