Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca3-15-01388/USCOURTS-ca3-15-01388-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 368
Nature of Suit: Asbestos Personal Injury - Prod.liab.
Cause of Action: 

---

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

________________

Nos. 15-1387, 15-1388 & 15-1389

________________

IN RE: ASBESTOS PRODUCTS LIABILITY LITIGATION (NO. VI)

Lionel C. Wilson, Deceased by Creighton E. Miller

Administrator of the Estate,

Appellant (No. 15-1387)

Estate of Joseph F. Braun, Creighton E. Miller, Administrator

Appellant (No. 15-1388)

Thomas Guiden, Deceased, by Creighton E. Miller, Administrator

Appellant (No. 15-1389)

________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. Civil Action No. 2-02-md-00875, 

2-11-cv-33880, 2-11-cv-33896 and 2-11-cv-33931)

District Judge: Honorable Eduardo C. Robreno

________________

Argued June 14, 2016

Before: AMBRO, JORDAN, and GREENBERG, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: August 18, 2016)

Alan Kellman

Timothy A. Swafford

The Jaques Admiralty Law Firm

645 Griswold Street

1370 Penobscot Building

Detroit, MI 48226

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 1 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
2

Louis M. Bograd (Argued)

Motely Rice

3333 K Street, N.W., Suite 450

Washington, DC 20007

Counsel for Appellants

Harold W. Henderson (Argued)

Thompson Hine

3900 Key Center

127 Public Square

Cleveland, OH 44114

Counsel for Appellees

________________

OPINION*

________________

AMBRO, Circuit Judge

Nearly three decades ago three former seamen—Lionel Wilson, Joseph Braun, and 

Thomas Guiden—sued the Matson Navigation Company, Inc. and the American 

President Line, Ltd. in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. 

They alleged violations of the Jones Act, 46 U.S.C. § 30104 et seq., and general maritime 

law resulting in harmful exposures to asbestos. After a complicated procedural history 

that eventually saw their lawsuits consolidated in the Asbestos Multidistrict Litigation 

(“MDL”) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, that 

Court dismissed their cases for lack of personal jurisdiction. Wilson, Braun, and Guiden 

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 2 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
3

have appealed, arguing, among other things, that Matson and American waived their 

personal jurisdiction defenses. We agree and therefore reverse.

I. Background

Wilson, Braun, and Guiden (like thousands of other seamen) filed lawsuits in Ohio 

in the late 1980s. Their cases were eventually consolidated in the Northern District of 

Ohio’s Maritime Docket (“MARDOC”) before Judge Thomas Lambros. Thompson, 

Hine, & Flory LLP represented many of the shipowner defendants, including Matson and 

American. In 1989 attorneys from that firm moved on behalf of Matson and several other 

defendants (but not American) to dismiss the MARDOC complaints for lack of personal 

jurisdiction. After two hearings on the issue, Judge Lambros ruled that he lacked personal 

jurisdiction over many shipowner defendants, including Matson. Rather than dismiss the 

cases against it, Judge Lambros decided to transfer them to courts where personal 

jurisdiction was proper. He ultimately “defer[red] putting an order on the transfer of those

cases and a finding of want of in personam jurisdiction” so that the plaintiffs could

identify to where each case should be transferred and the defendants could decide if they 

preferred to remain in the Northern District of Ohio by waiving their personal jurisdiction 

defenses. App. 134. 

Two orders followed. The first, MARDOC Order 40, directed the plaintiffs to 

“report the choice of forum as to those cases which are the subject of the transfer order” 

and stated that an appropriate transfer order would issue in December 1989. App. 289. It

also noted that “[p]arties who, upon reconsideration of their motions to dismiss or 

transfer, wish to remain in this jurisdiction need only file answers to the complaints” to 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 3 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
4

remain in the Northern District of Ohio. Id. The second, MARDOC Order 41, again

recognized “the insufficiency of minimal state contacts to invoke in personam 

jurisdiction” as to some shipowner defendants in Ohio and instructed that the cases 

against those “defendant shipowners which were determined not to be subject to in 

personam jurisdiction . . . are transferred.” App. 292. The order specified that the Court

lacked personal jurisdiction over Matson with respect to the claims of Wilson, Braun, and 

Guiden, but it made no mention of claims against American.

Matson chose neither to submit to transfer nor to waive its personal jurisdiction 

defense. Rather it moved to certify MARDOC Orders 40 and 41 for interlocutory appeal 

to the Sixth Circuit Court and to stay proceedings pending that appeal (Judge Lambros 

never ruled on those motions) and filed Master Answer No. 1, which raised as an 

affirmative defense that the “Court lacks personal jurisdiction over this defendant due to 

insufficient contacts of this defendant” with the forum state. App. 710. Matson and 

American eventually adopted Master Answer No. 1 as to Wilson, Braun, and Guiden.

Litigation continued in the Northern District of Ohio, and the MARDOC cases 

were divided into groups of cases known as “clusters” to aid case management. At a 

hearing in January 1991, the parties discussed the fate of several clusters. At the 

beginning of the hearing, they talked about how they would proceed with the first cluster 

of twenty cases, four of which had already been tried to a jury in the Northern District of 

Ohio. After much discussion, it was resolved that the remaining sixteen cases from the 

cluster would be tried to that same jury in the Northern District of Ohio, a United States 

Magistrate Judge would preside over thirteen of the trials, and the remaining three trials 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 4 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
5

would occur before Judge Lambros, who by then had become the Chief Judge of his 

District.

During the hearing Chief Judge Lambros made clear that he intended to transfer 

four clusters of cases to the Eastern District of Michigan for pretrial administration and

trial. See App. 477-78 (“I have just had confirmation that although discussions previously 

were preliminary that they are asking to pack up the first four clusters . . . to Detroit.”). 

After an intervening discussion about the possibility of settlements and the process for 

appealing verdicts in the sixteen cases that were set to be tried in the Northern District of 

Ohio, the conversation returned to the four clusters that were to be transferred to the 

Eastern District of Michigan. Chief Judge Lambros explained there was at that time a

“Michigan cluster” and an “Ohio cluster,” each made up of several sub-clusters. App. 

518. The former would “be transmitted to” the Eastern District of Michigan, and “the 

management of those cases will be left to the discretion of the Detroit judges.” App. 518-

19. As to the Ohio cluster, “pretrial management matters, scheduling matters, [and]

discovery matters” would be referred to a Magistrate Judge in the Northern District of 

Ohio. App. 518.

After a brief discussion about costs, severance, and third-party practice, attorneys 

from Thompson, Hine, & Flory LLP represented that all of their clients—including 

Matson and American—“did not agree or concede to trials of any of these cases in 

Detroit.” App. 538. They continued:

We had put our objection on the record before, but trials of the Ohio cases in 

Detroit are something that our clients waived jurisdictional objections to proceed 

here in Cleveland. To go to Detroit is something they don’t agree to.

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 5 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
6

Id. Counsel for all defendants noted their agreement with that objection. 

Notwithstanding that objection, Ohio Asbestos Litigation (“OAL”) Order 125

issued the next day. It transferred four clusters of cases—including those of Wilson, 

Braun, and Guiden—to the Eastern District of Michigan. App. 468. Matson and 

American promptly asked Chief Judge Lambros to vacate OAL Order 125 so that the 

cases could “be retained for pretrial management and trial in Cleveland.” App. 568. At 

the same time, they asked the District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan to retransfer the cases back to the Northern District of Ohio. See App. 620-27; see also App. 

637 (opposing the Report and Recommendation of a Magistrate Judge from the Eastern 

District of Michigan regarding partial re-transfer and asking the Eastern District of 

Michigan Court “to re-transfer all Ohio cases to the Northern District of Ohio”).

In any event, the Asbestos MDL was created in the Eastern District of 

Pennsylvania. In March 1991, Matson and American opposed the transfer of the 

MARDOC cases to the Asbestos MDL and urged the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict 

Litigation (“JPML”) to consolidate the MARDOC cases in the Northern District of Ohio. 

App. 651. In a filing with the JPML, they wrote, “If transfer is to take place, ShipownerDefendants request that it be to the Northern District of Ohio. Procedures already are in 

place for the pretrial management of seamen’s asbestos cases, and this is the district in 

which the largest number of seamen’s cases is pending.” Id. The MARDOC cases were

ultimately transferred to the Asbestos MDL, see In re Asbestos Prods. Liab. Litig. (No. 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 6 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
7

VI), 771 F. Supp. 415, 417-18 (Jud. Pan. Mult. Lit. 1991), and remained dormant until 

2011 when they were activated for pretrial administration.

In July 2014, Matson and American moved in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania 

to dismiss the cases against them for lack of personal jurisdiction. Judge Robreno granted 

the motions “for the reasons discussed in” Bartel v. Various Defendants, 965 F. Supp. 2d 

612 (E.D. Pa. 2013), and Jacobs v. A-C Prod. Liab. Tr., 2014 WL 944227 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 

11, 2014), two Asbestos MDL opinions dealing with nearly identical records. App. 5.

Applying those opinions to the cases before us, he ruled that Matson and American had

preserved their personal jurisdiction defenses because they had raised the issue

throughout the litigation and there was no evidence to show that they had waived their 

defenses as to Wilson, Braun, or Guiden. He explained that the statements in January 

1991 that Matson and American did not consent to litigate “these cases” in the Eastern 

District of Michigan only related to the sixteen cases that were set for trial in the 

Northern District of Ohio. Moreover, he interpreted Matson’s and American’s opposition 

to the consolidation of the MARDOC cases in the Asbestos MDL simply as resistance to 

the Asbestos MDL, not as affirmative consent to litigate in Ohio. This appeal followed, 

with all three seamen challenging Judge Robreno’s ruling with respect to Matson and 

only Guiden challenging the ruling with respect to American. 

II. Standard of Review

We review for abuse of discretion the District Court’s determination that Matson 

and American did not waive their personal jurisdiction defenses. See Lechoslaw v. Bank 

of Am., N.A., 618 F.3d 49, 55-56 (1st Cir. 2010); Hamilton v. Atlas Turner, Inc., 197 F.3d 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 7 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
8

58, 60 (2d Cir. 1999); United States v. Ziegler Bolt & Parts Co., 111 F.3d 878, 882 (Fed. 

Cir. 1997). A court abuses its discretion when its decision “rests upon a clearly erroneous 

finding of fact, an errant conclusion of law or an improper application of law to fact.”

Sharp v. Johnson, 669 F.3d 144, 158 n.19 (3d Cir. 2012) (internal quotations omitted).

III. Discussion

Personal jurisdiction “restricts judicial power not as a matter of sovereignty, but as 

a matter of individual liberty, for due process protects the individual’s right to be subject 

only to lawful power.” J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 564 U.S. 873, 884 (2011) 

(internal quotation marks omitted). “Because the requirement of personal jurisdiction 

represents first of all an individual right, it can, like other such rights, be waived.” Ins. 

Corp. of Ireland, Ltd. v. Compagnie des Bauxites de Guinee, 456 U.S. 694, 703 (1982). A 

party is deemed to have consented to personal jurisdiction, and thereby waived it as a 

defense, if that party “actually litigates the underlying merits or demonstrates a 

willingness to engage in extensive litigation in the forum.” In re Tex. E. Transmission 

Corp. PCB Contamination Ins. Coverage Litig., 15 F.3d 1230, 1236 (3d Cir. 1994); see 

Bel-Ray Co., Inc. v. Chemrite (Pty) Ltd., 181 F.3d 435, 443 (3d Cir. 1999).

Judge Robreno ruled that Matson and American preserved their personal 

jurisdiction defenses. He explained that they raised their defenses in the Northern District 

of Ohio in the late 1980s, they raised them again when they adopted Master Answer 

No. 1, and finally they raised them in the Asbestos MDL after the cases were activated in 

2011. More importantly, Judge Robreno rejected claims that Matson and American had 

affirmatively waived their personal jurisdiction defenses. He explained in Jacobs—the 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 8 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
9

reasoning of which is at the heart of the appeals before us now—that the statements by 

their counsel at the January 1991 hearing “involved a group of twenty cases in a trial 

cluster in Cleveland, Ohio” that did not include the cases of Wilson, Braun, or Guiden.

2014 WL 944227, at *3. According to him, “Defendants had won three of the four cases 

that had been tried, and had agreed to waive personal jurisdiction in the other sixteen 

cases remaining in that cluster for strategic, case-specific purposes.” Id. He thus 

concluded that Matson and American waived their personal jurisdiction defenses “only in 

those sixteen specific cases—none of which are before the Court.” Id. at *5.

Ruling that Matson and American did not waive their personal jurisdiction 

defenses as to Wilson, Braun, and Guiden at the January 1991 hearing is, we believe, a 

further stretch than what we believe the facts support. Matson and American consented at 

that hearing to proceed with “these cases” in the Northern District of Ohio, and that

phrase clearly refers to the clusters that Chief Judge Lambros intended to transfer to the 

Eastern District of Michigan, which included the lawsuits brought by Wilson, Braun, and 

Guiden. This is apparent for several reasons. First, counsel for Matson and American

specifically opposed transfer of “these cases” to Detroit, and the earlier mentions of 

Detroit at the hearing related only to those clusters that Chief Judge Lambros intended to 

transfer to the Eastern District of Michigan. See App. 477-78 (statement by Chief Judge 

Lambros that he “ha[s] been in very close touch with Chief Judge Julian Cook” of the 

Eastern District of Michigan, and that the judges of the Eastern District of Michigan “are 

asking [the Northern District of Ohio Court] to pack up the first four clusters” and to send 

them “to Detroit”); App. 518-19 (statement by Chief Judge Lambros that the 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 9 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
10

management of the Michigan cluster would “be left to the discretion of the Detroit 

judges”). It was in reference to those cases that counsel for Matson and American said 

that they consented to jurisdiction in the Northern District of Ohio. We believe that is a 

clear waiver of the personal jurisdiction defense in the specific cases before us.

Second, Judge Robreno’s interpretation of the hearing transcript—that the waiver 

was limited to the sixteen cases set for trial in the Northern District of Ohio—is belied by 

the record. Chief Judge Lambros never suggested that the sixteen cases left over from the 

first cluster were at risk of being transferred to Michigan. And by the time counsel for 

Matson and American noted their desire to litigate in Ohio, it was already settled that 

those sixteen cases were to remain in Cleveland. For example, it had been decided on the 

record that all sixteen cases would be tried to the same Ohio jury that heard the first four 

cases from that cluster, with thirteen cases to be tried before an Ohio Magistrate Judge 

and the remaining three before Chief Judge Lambros himself. Indeed, the parties had

already set a trial date in Cleveland for thirteen cases. So even though extended portions 

of the January 1991 hearing were devoted to a discussion of how to handle those sixteen

cases, the waiver of the personal jurisdiction defenses cannot plausibly be understood to 

have been limited to them. There was no question the sixteen cases would be tried in the 

Northern District of Ohio, and there is no reason to think that the objection to the transfer 

of “these cases” to Michigan referred to cases that were not at risk of being transferred.

Third, post-transfer filings by Matson and American confirm that they waived 

their personal jurisdiction defenses with respect to Wilson, Braun, and Guiden. After the 

clusters containing their cases were transferred to the Eastern District of Michigan, 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 10 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
11

Matson and American sought to have them transferred back to the Northern District of 

Ohio. In their filings with the Northern District of Ohio Court, the Eastern District of 

Michigan Court, and the JPML, they specifically requested that the cases be returned to 

Ohio. See App. 568, 620-27, 637, 651.

Matson and American argue that they sought to be in the Northern District of Ohio 

not to litigate the merits of the cases against them, but to seek review of Chief Judge 

Lambros’s decision to transfer (rather than dismiss) for lack of personal jurisdiction. But 

that position contradicts the record, which shows they requested that the cases be sent to 

Ohio not for reconsideration of a particular ruling but “for pretrial management and trial

in Cleveland.” App. 568 (emphasis added). The conclusion is clear: Matson and 

American waived their personal jurisdiction defenses and wished to proceed to trial in the 

Northern District of Ohio.1

* * * * * *

In summary, by stating their willingness to litigate the lawsuits of Wilson, Braun, 

and Guiden in the Northern District of Ohio at the hearing before chief Judge Lambros in 

January 1991, Matson and American waived their lack-of-personal jurisdiction defense.

Those waivers were confirmed by their various post-transfer filings. That they purported 

to preserve their personal jurisdiction defenses in their pleadings does not change the 

import of these clear waivers. Thus it was incorrect to dismiss the cases before us. We 

 

1 Because of this ruling, we do not reach Appellants’ law-of-the-case argument. 

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 11 Date Filed: 08/18/2016
12

reverse and remand to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Court for proceedings 

consistent with this opinion.

2

 

2 Appellants’ Motion to File a Supplemental Appendix is denied because the 

materials contained in the proposed Supplemental Appendix were not presented to Judge 

Robreno, and “we will not consider new evidence on appeal absent extraordinary 

circumstances.” See In re Application of Adan, 437 F.3d 381, 388 n.3 (3d Cir. 2006).

Case: 15-1388 Document: 003112385258 Page: 12 Date Filed: 08/18/2016