New Jersey court dismisses claim against manufacturer, finding no evidence of actual asbestos-containing product use

In Ward v. Affinia Group, et al., the New Jersey Superior Court, Middlesex County, granted summary judgment to LCBF’s client on the ground that there was no evidence to establish that decedent worked with or around an asbestos-containing product made by the client. Plaintiffs argued that an affidavit by decedent's son, stating that decedent's shop used the client’s product and that the product was dusty, created an issue of fact precluding summary judgment. We argued that the affidavit was a "sham" because it sharply contradicted earlier testimony and did not identify any asbestos-containing product manufactured by our client that the decedent was actually using. The court rejected the affidavit and found that "from the evidence presented on the record [there was] a reasonable inference that some [products] contained asbestos, [but] there was no connection made between the 'possible' [products] sold by [the shop across the street] and Decedent actually using that [product]." The LCBF team was headed by Joseph Tomaino.