SAN FRANCISCO (Legal Newsline) - A woman who waited to name an air-brake manufacturer in an asbestos lawsuit until after her husband’s death got a second chance to sue the company after a California appeals court ruled her case was improperly dismissed for failure to name the defendant in time.
The trial court applied the incorrect standard for deciding whether plaintiff Susan Hahn should have included New York Air Brake Co. in her original complaint, California’s First Appellate District, Division Five ruled in an April 25 decision. Hahn didn’t possess enough facts to conclude New York Air Brake was a valid defendant when she first sued along with her husband in 2015, the appeals court ruled.
Only after her husband died the following year and lawyers obtained evidence the company manufactured brake systems containing asbestos could she add it to the suit, the court said.
The decision reaffirms a “negligent ignorance” doctrine the California Supreme Court established in 1886, under which plaintiffs are held to a looser standard than defendants when it comes to their obligation to uncover facts related to their case. While defendants can be held liable for things they knew or should have known, plaintiffs only have to act on facts they know at the time.
In this case, the Hahns sued Boeing and 800 “John Does” after Richard Hahn was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer that can be caused by exposure to asbestos. He blamed his work at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which used Boeing railcars.
A transportation agency executive testified in October 2015 that New York Air Brake made the brakes in Boeing rail vehicles and that Bendix made the brake pads, but said he didn’t know if they contained asbestos. After Richard Hahn died in 2016, Boeing supplied documents showing the air brakes used asbestos-containing brake pads and Susan Hahn named New York Air Brake as one of the John Doe defendants.
The trial court dismissed her case, saying she was on notice that New York Air Brake was a defendant after the agency executive named the company as a component supplier. But the appeals court said “the trial court’s standard suggests that, when a plaintiff is ignorant of the requisite facts, she has a duty to exercise reasonable diligence to obtain facts that she `should have known.’”
California’s rules of civil procedure don’t impose such a high standard, the court said, and for good reason. Without such a rule, plaintiffs would have to name any conceivable defendant at the outset to preserve their rights in case more facts emerged later, the court concluded.