To the Law Weekly:

I am writing with regard to the article that appeared in my email Dec. 4, “Delaware Supreme Court Gets 'Dishonorable Mention' in This Year's 'Judicial Hellholes' Report.”

Therein Delaware Law Weekly quoted the American Tort Reform Association report as saying “The Supreme Court of Delaware reversed its longstanding precedent and held that both manufacturers and employers can be held liable for 'take-home' asbestos exposure.”

It should be noted that two Supreme Court decisions that Ramsey v. Georgia Southern University Advanced Development Center overturned in Delaware are Riedel v. ICI Americas, 968 A.2d 17 (Del. 2009), and Price v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., 26 A.3d 162 (Del. 2011). They had been the law with regard to employers only for nine years. For over 20 years prior to those decisions, Delaware law has been that manufacturers and employers have a duty to warn about the dangers of their products.

Household exposure cases have been tried in Delaware Superior Court since 1989. In Wilson v. A.C.&S., Pauline Kline alleged that her asbestos disease was caused by failure to warn by Philip Carey (now known as Celotex) due to Philip Carey's asbestos brought home on her husband's clothing. A verdict was then entered on behalf of Kline on the basis of failure to warn.

In Shewbrooks v. A.C.&S., 1987 Del. Super. LEXIS 1397, at *7-8 (Del. Super. Dec. 4, 1987), the Superior Court rejected the employer defendant's contention that it was not foreseeable in the 1940s that the spouse of an asbestos worker could be harmed, holding there was a duty owed. In In re Asbestos Litigation (Mergenthaler), 542 A.2d 1205,1208 (Del. Super. 1986), the Superior Court of Delaware found there was a duty to warn owed by the manufacturer defendant.

To say the Delaware Supreme Court reversed its longstanding precedent is wrong. It affirmed its longstanding precedent.

Raeann Warner

Jacobs & Crumplar