ATLANTA (Legal Newsline) - A Georgia appeals court ruled that the state’s 10-year statute of repose applies to a lawsuit against a manufacturer accused of selling asbestos-contaminated talcum powder, although the decision left plaintiffs a narrow window to argue the company misled consumers through fraud.
The Court of Appeals reversed a trial court decision that held Georgia’s Asbestos Claims and Silica Claims Act superseded a general statute of repose barring lawsuits filed more than 10 years after the plaintiff first purchased the defendant’s product. While the 2010 asbestos claims act says it applies “notwithstanding any other provision of law,” the appeals court ruled that Georgia legislators didn’t intend that to mean it overrode the statute of repose.
“It is well settled that we presume that the legislature enacts all statutes with knowledge of the existing laws,” Judge Todd Markle wrote in a June 28 decision. “If the General Assembly had wanted to eliminate the statute of repose for claims brought under (the 2010 law), it could have included specific language as it has done in other statutes.”
Georgia’s statute of repose applies to strict liability claims against manufacturers. Plaintiff Shirley Eubanks claimed she began using talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson and other companies more than 60 years ago and blamed the powder for her diagnosis of ovarian cancer. One defendant, PTI Royston, challenged her lawsuit under the statute of repose, saying Eubanks first bought its products in 2005, more than 10 years before she filed suit in 2019.
Eubanks sued under the 2010 asbestos act, which says “the limitations period shall not begin to run” until the plaintiff has obtained evidence of injury, typically a diagnosis of cancer.
The court ruled that the meaning of “limitations period” was ambiguous and didn’t replace the 10-year limit under the statute of repose, however. Statutes of limitation refer to actual legal claims, the court reasoned, while statutes of repose bar claims regardless of whether they exist or when they are discovered.
The statute of repose was intended to “eliminate stale claims and stabilize products liability underwriting,” the court wrote. Other states including Ohio and Texas have passed laws explicitly excluding asbestos claims from the statute of repose, the court noted, while Tennessee law does the opposite.
“If this interpretation is not what the General Assembly intended, the remedy lies solely with the legislature,” the court concluded. “It is not for this court to correct it.”
The law only limits strict-liability claims, the court went on. Plaintiffs can still sue for negligence. And the decision doesn’t affect plaintiffs' claims that the statute of repose should be tolled under a narrow exception for fraud. The appeals court remanded the lawsuit to trial court to consider claims PTI knew its products contained asbestos and concealed that information from consumers.