La. Court Grants Partial Summary Judgment on Issue of Defense Warnings on Benzene Exposure Prior to Late 1970s

NEW ORLEANS –– A Louisiana court has ruled that benzene plaintiffs with claims pending in federal court have established that the defendants did not warn users that their gasoline products contained benzene or that benzene could cause leukemia before the late 1970s, but emphasized that its ruling was not a determination on whether the defendants owed the plaintiffs a duty to warn of those dangers.

In the Aug. 8 opinion, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana also denied efforts by the plaintiffs to obtain partial summary judgment on medical causation and the defendants’ knowledge of the …