Mullinex v. John Crane, Inc., 2022 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 92512, 2022 WL 1637175 (E.D. Va. May 23, 2022)
Patricia E. Mullinex (“Mullinex”) sued John Crane, Inc. (“JCI”) for asbestos-related products liability claims for the JCI’s gaskets and packing which were used by the Navy and harmed Mullinex. JCI sought to raise the government contractor defense. Leading up to trial, Mullinex filed a Motion to Exclude Irrelevant Evidence and Testimony regarding the Alleged Knowledge or Negligence of the Navy (the “Motion”), and a Magistrate Judge’s order (the “Order”) denied her motion in part and granted it in part. On November 8, 2021, Mullinex filed an objection to that Order arguing that the Order impermissibly rewrote the third prong of the government contractor defense by allowing JCI to present evidence of the Navy’s knowledge about the hazards of asbestos generally, as opposed to being required to establish the Navy’s knowledge of the asbestos hazards presented by JCI’s products.
The Court Vacated the Magistrate Judge’s Order in part and held that the Magistrate Judge’s Order misapplied the standard to establish the third prong the government contractor defense to products liability claims. In Boyle, the Supreme Court first recognized the government contractor defense in product liability cases. Under Boyle, in evaluating the government contractor defense in product liability cases, liability for design defects in military equipment cannot be imposed, pursuant to state law, when: (1) the United States approved reasonably precise specifications; (2) the equipment conformed to those specifications; and (3) the supplier warned the United States about the dangers in the use of the equipment that were known to the supplier but not to the United States. In applying the defense to failure-to-warn cases, three criteria are necessary to establish the immunity defense: (1) the government exercised its discretion and approved certain warnings; (2) the contractor provided the warnings required by the government; and (3) the contractor warned the government about dangers in the equipment’s use that were known to the contractor but not to the government. Therefore, it was JCI’s burden to prove under the third prong of Boyle that the Navy knew that JCI’s gaskets and packaging presented an asbestos risk and the Navy proceeded to use the products without warning labels anyway. The Magistrate Judge’s Order was incorrect because it suggests that JCI could satisfy the third prong of the government contractor defense by merely presenting evidence of the Navy’s general knowledge about the hazards of asbestos without connecting that knowledge to the JCI products at issue.
