Product ID, Successor-In-Interest Arguments Clear Defendants in N.C. Asbestos Case

ASHVILLE, N.C. — Seven defendants in a North Carolina asbestos suit have been awarded summary judgment based on a lack of product identification evidence and the plaintiff’s failure to show that one of the defendants was a legal successor to the company that employed him.

Judge Martin Reidinger of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina said in a Sept. 23 decision that the only evidence offered in support of plaintiff Ralph O’Neil Starnes was deposition testimony in which he failed to identify any type of work with or around six of the defendants’ products. As …