Oregon Appellate Court Rejects Application of ‘Bare Metal Defense,’ Reverses Summary Judgment Award

SALEM, Ore. –– An Oregon appellate court has reversed an order awarding summary judgment to Warren Pumps LLC, finding that the defendant can, in fact, be held strictly liable for asbestos-containing component parts it did not manufacture or sell since its pumps were “expected to, and did, reach users without substantial change in the condition in which they were sold.”

In the April 20 order, the Oregon Court of Appeals also took issue with decisions out of California and Washington that adopted the bare metal defense in asbestos cases, saying that those orders in part contradicted the idea that …