Source: https://www.defenselitigationinsider.com/author/aadamsmgmlaw-com/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 12:52:29+00:00

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Abby Adams is an associate in the firm's San Francisco office, where her practice focuses on civil litigation including products liability, toxic tort, professional malpractice and employment law litigation. In addition, Abby has experience negotiating business and event contracts on behalf of small to medium-sized businesses.
On Friday, June 2, 2017, the California Court of Appeal for the Second District, issued an unpublished opinion holding that Shell Oil Company owed a duty to protect from asbestos exposure the wife of a former machinist who worked at Shell facilities from approximately 1954 to 1992. Beckering v. Shell Oil Company (Cal. Ct. App., June 2, 2017, No. B256407), “Beckering II”). In this recent opinion, the Court of Appeal reversed its own earlier ruling from 2014 which initially held that a premises owner has no duty to protect a family member from secondary exposure to asbestos off the premises (Beckering v. Shell Oil Company (Cal. Ct. App., Nov. 21, 2014, No. B256407), “Beckering I”).
Beckering II, the latest appellate decision regarding the scope of duty owed in secondary asbestos exposure or “take home” cases, is the result of the trickledown effect of the California Supreme Court’s December 2016 decision Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132.
In Kesner, the California Supreme Court examined whether employers and landowners owe a duty of care to prevent secondary exposure to asbestos and held that “the duty of employers and premises owners to exercise ordinary care in their use of asbestos includes preventing exposure to asbestos carried by the bodies and clothing of on-site workers.” Kesner v. Superior Court (2016) 1 Cal.5th 1132, 1140. In so holding, the Court found it was “reasonably foreseeable that workers, their clothing, or personal effects will act as vectors carrying asbestos from the premises to household members [and that, therefore] employers have a duty to take reasonable care to prevent this means of transmission.” Id. Notably, “[t]his duty also applies to premises owners who use asbestos on their property” regardless of whether the premises owner is the vector’s employer, although the Court recognized that premises liability includes a number of affirmative defenses and exceptions which may be applicable depending on the facts of the case. See Id., at 1140, 1160.
To arrive at this conclusion, the Supreme Court examined and applied the well-established “Rowland factors” which, when balanced together, can justify a departure from the general rule of ordinary care: (1) the foreseeability of harm to the plaintiff; (2) the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury; (3) the closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered; (4) the moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct; (5) the policy of preventing future harm; (6) the extent of the burden to the defendant and consequences to the community of imposing a duty to exercise care with resulting liability for breach; (7) and the availability, cost, and prevalence of insurance for the risk involved. Kesner, 1 Cal.5th at 1145; see Cabral v. Ralphs Grocery Co. (2011) 51 Cal.4th 764, 771; Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 105, 112; see also Parsons v. Crown Disposal Co. (1997) 15 Cal.4th 456, 472.

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