A Philadelphia court has awarded more than $4.5 million to a mesothelioma plaintiff and his wife of 57 years. Few mesothelioma plaintiffs live long enough to hear a final verdict in their cases, making the outcome of this reverse bifurcated trial especially significant.

Waters & Kraus, LLP, and the Shein Law Center, LTD, served as plaintiff’s counsel for former U.S. Navy engineman John Koeberle. The plaintiff was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma in April 2009. Under the reverse bifurcated system, Phase I requires a jury to first determine whether the plaintiff’s illness was caused by asbestos exposure. Neither the names of the manufacturers nor a suggested dollar amount for damages may be mentioned to the jury during this phase. According to Waters & Kraus attorney Demetrios Zacharopoulos, the team’s first order of business was to support the diagnosis of mesothelioma. Typically, the diagnosis is based on hard tissue samples, but Mr. Koeberle’s doctors advised that the physical risks associated with obtaining tissue samples from his lung were not in the plaintiff’s best interest. As a result, the diagnosis was made based on cytological examinations of fluids taken from Mr. Koeberle’s chest cavity — a diagnosis which was made by Mr. Koeberle’s treating physician and confirmed by Plaintiff’s medical expert Gordon Yu, M.D.

According to Mr. Koeberle’s testimony, his Naval duties from 1948 to 1957 included maintenance work on diesel engines, valves, and pumps requiring the replacement of asbestos-containing gasket and packing materials. Frequently, the removal of these materials involved scraping and wire-brushing, which generated conditions he described as “very dusty.” In addition, the process of inserting new gaskets and packing often involved cutting sheet material to fabricate a custom fit.

After a nine-day trial, the jury concluded that Mr. Koeberle’s exposure to asbestos was indeed a contributing cause of his mesothelioma. Mr. Koeberle was awarded $3 million under the Survival Act, and Mrs. Koeberle was awarded $1.5 million for loss of consortium, or deprivation of the benefits of a family relationship due to illness or injury.

The Phase II liability proceeding was a bench trial in which the court found John Crane Inc., the lone remaining defendant of seven original manufacturers in the case, liable for Mr. Koeberle’s illness under Section 402A’s strict liability rule. The plaintiff recalled seeing the name of the defendant and manufacturer, John Crane Inc., on the boxes he used while maintaining and repairing equipment for the Navy.

The judge ruled that Mr. Koeberle’s exposure to John Crane asbestos-containing gaskets and packing was a factual cause in the development of Mr. Koeberle’s mesothelioma. As a result, John Crane is liable for one-seventh of the amount of damages rendered by the Jury in Phase I.

Although Mr. Koeberle was too ill to be in the courtroom when the final decision was announced on June 3, WK attorney Demetrios Zacharopoulos said the plaintiff and his family are both pleased and relieved.

“These cases are never easy,” explained Mr. Zacharopoulos. “As with all of our cases, we pushed to expedite proceedings — and in this instance, Mr. Koeberle and his family were able to witness justice being rendered and having John Crane held accountable for its actions. They’re very pleased with the result, and they’re relieved that they can now move on and experience some closure.”

About Waters & Kraus, LLP
Waters & Kraus, LLP, is a plaintiffs’ firm concentrating on complex product liability and personal injury/wrongful death cases. The firm’s diverse practice includes toxic tort (asbestos and mesothelioma) litigation, pharmaceutical product liability, negligence, and consumer product liability, as well as qui tam (whistle-blower), and commercial litigation. With offices in Maryland, Texas, California, and Waters & Kraus has litigated cases in jurisdictions across the United States on behalf of individuals from all 50 states, as well as foreign governments.

President Barack Obama met on his own turf with top BP officials on Wednesday to press his demands that the London-based oil giant pay into a claims fund for victims of the worst oil spill in the nation's history.

BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, CEO Tony Hayward, and other officials walked slowly as a group from the Southwest Gate of the White House, where they were dropped off, and climbed the steps leading to the West Wing.

The meeting comes the morning after Obama vowed to an angry nation that "we will make BP pay for the damage their company has caused." BP is the majority owner of the deep water well that blew out on April 20, killing 11 rig workers and triggering the spill.

It was Obama's first meeting with BP officials since the spill. While Hayward has served as the voice of the company, the White House has been emphasizing the role of the company's chairman, Svanberg, instead.

Obama in his speech to the nation from the Oval Office backed creation of a fund administered by an independent trustee to pay damages and clean up costs associated with the spill.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Democrats have suggested the fund be established with $20 billion from BP.

JDA Software may have to pay department store operator Dillard's $246 million in a dispute over a software licensing agreement, the company said Wednesday.

JDA, which makes which makes software that helps retailers manage inventory, said a Texas jury in state district court for Dallas County came down on the side of Dillard's in a ruling Tuesday.

Dillard's Inc. charged that JDA subsidiary i2 Technologies failed to meet its obligations under the licensing agreement.

JDA said it is reviewing the decision and will seek to have it overturned.

Shares of JDA Software Group Inc. fell 70 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $27 in premarket trading.

A New Mexico-based uranium producer plans to move forward with a mining operation in the western part of the state after that a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that its land is not part of Indian Country.

The full 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver ruled in a 6-5 decision that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency erred when it determined that a parcel of land near the Navajo community of Church Rock was Indian land.

The decision means that Hydro Resources Inc. can seek an underground injection control permit from the state of New Mexico rather than the EPA, which has permitting authority on tribal lands.

Hydro Resources wants to inject chemicals into the ground to release uranium and pump the solution to the surface in a process called in-situ leaching.

City lawyers called on local Boy Scout officials to muster "the courage of their convictions" and challenge their national group's ban on gays as a trial over government funding opened Tuesday.

The city of Philadelphia wants to end its $1-a-year lease to the local Boy Scouts chapter unless it rejects a Boy Scouts of America policy banning "avowed" gays. The city says the national rule violates a local law banning discrimination on sexual-orientation and other grounds.

Local scout chapters, including the Cradle of Liberty Council in Philadelphia, have struggled in recent years to satisfy both public and private funders as well as their national leadership's dictums. The Boy Scout oath calls for members to be "morally straight," which the national group interprets to mean that gays cannot participate.

In 2004, the Philadelphia chapter agreed to ban any "unlawful" discrimination. But the city said the policy didn't go far enough, given that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 had said scouts and other private organizations can legally restrict membership.

The White House is expected to tap Kenneth Feinberg as the independent administrator of an oil-spill escrow fund being negotiated by BP PLC and the administration, according to U.S. officials.

In his Oval Office address Tuesday night, President Barack Obama said BP should establish a restitution fund with "whatever resources are required," controlled by an independent administrator.

Lawmakers have suggested BP contribute $20 billion to the fund, which would would compensate Gulf residents for losses associated with the oil spill.

Mr. Feinberg will run the claims process as independent third party.

The attorney has taken on a series of high-profile arbitration cases during his career. He is currently the U.S. government's pay czar, a role in which he butted heads with financial executives over their pay packages. He also oversaw the federal government's compensation fund for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Corliss' lawyer, Mark Jay Heller, says the stunt jumper had already promised to avoid the building unless invited back. An Empire State Building spokeswoman didn't immediately return a call for comment Tuesday evening.

Corliss was the host of a Discovery Channel program called "Stunt Junkies" when he tried to parachute from the 86th-floor observation deck of the 102-story landmark in April 2006. Security guards stopped him.