Court Rejects Plaintiff's Reliance on MSDS to Establish Exposure Level

ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- A federal court has granted summary judgment to ExxonMobil and Sea River Maritime, after finding that causation experts produced by a benzene plaintiff failed to quantify the level of benzene exposure, therefore rendering the opinions inadmissible. Marsch v. Exxon Mobil Corp., et al., No. 03-1646 (E.D. Mo.).

In the Sept. 15 decision, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri ruled that reliance on Material Safety Data Sheets was not sufficient to establish overexposure to benzene. The decision effectively precluded the testimony of John R. Eckardt, M.D., Robert E. Short Jr., Ph.D., and Kenneth …