The Second Appellate District affirmed a judgment. The court held that a settlement offer that was significantly less than the damages sought by plaintiffs was nonetheless properly deemed by the trial court to be both reasonable and in good faith when it was evaluated in terms of the plaintiffs’ likelihood of prevailing at trial.
Richard Adams died of mesothelioma, leaving a wife and three children. The survivors sued Ford Motor Company and numerous other automobile manufacturers and others, alleging that Adams’s illness was caused by the high levels of asbestos dust to which he was exposed when, during a lifetime of maintaining his own vehicles, he replaced the brake pads on those vehicles. The survivors sought $150,000 in medical expenses, $1,000,000 in loss of earnings and $1,000,000 in general damages.
