Louisiana Mesothelioma Verdicts and Settlements: Avondale, Take-Home, and the Virile Share

Louisiana’s industrial profile, anchored by Avondale Shipyard, the Mississippi River refinery and petrochemical corridor, and longshore work at the Port of New Orleans, produces asbestos cases that routinely involve many defendants and many product manufacturers. Three verdicts in particular illustrate how Louisiana juries have handled chemical corridor, take-home, and longshore exposure.

Notable Louisiana Outcomes

Walker v. Level 3 Holdings: $36.7M Chemical Corridor Verdict, Affirmed at $35.75M

In June 2022, after a six-day trial in Orleans Parish Civil District Court, a Louisiana jury entered a $36.7 million verdict in favor of Bernard Walker, a retired Local 60 union welder and pipefitter. Defendants included Level 3 Holdings (formerly Peter Kiewit Sons’) and Taylor-Seidenbach Inc., among 21 named defendants in total. Walker was exposed at multiple plants along the Louisiana chemical corridor in the 1960s and 1970s.

The jury allocated 11 of 21 virile shares to Level 3 Holdings, producing a Level 3 liability of $19,254,279.23 against the company. The Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal subsequently affirmed the judgment against Level 3 at $35.75 million, leaving the verdict and underlying liability findings intact.

Baron & Budd reported the verdict as the firm’s largest single-client asbestos judgment in Louisiana at the time of announcement.

Henry Pete v. Ports America Gulfport: Take-Home From Longshore Work

On November 4, 2020, an Orleans Parish Civil District Court jury (Division N-8, docket 2019-10545) awarded Henry Pete $10,351,020.70 against Ports America Gulfport, Inc. (successor to Boland Marine). Pete developed mesothelioma from take-home exposure to his father’s longshore work clothes between 1964 and 1968. The award broke down to $551,020.70 past medical expenses, $4.3 million past and future pain and suffering, $3 million physical disability, and $2.5 million loss of enjoyment of life.

The Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the verdict on January 5, 2023 (docket 2021-CA-0626). The Louisiana Supreme Court (docket 2023-C-00170, October 2023) reduced general damages to $5 million as the “highest amount that could be reasonably awarded,” establishing what Louisiana attorneys now refer to as the “Pete Standard” for appellate review of general damages in mesothelioma cases. The liability finding and the underlying take-home exposure theory were not disturbed.

Myra Williams v. Ingersoll-Rand: Laundering a Husband’s Clothes

On April 29, 2016, the 10th Judicial District Court in Natchitoches Parish (Judge Lala B. Sylvester, Case No. 76,787) awarded Myra Williams’s family $7 million for her take-home mesothelioma death. Williams developed mesothelioma from laundering her husband Jimmy Williams’s asbestos-dusted Placid Oil work clothes and died from the disease.

Ingersoll-Rand was found 100% liable on the wrongful death claim and 50% on the survival action. The breakdown: $3 million survival action, $1 million wrongful death to Jimmy Williams, and $750,000 to each of four children. Counsel included Baggett McCall LLC (Wells T. Watson, Jeffrey T. Gaughan), Unglesby Law Firm (Lewis O. Unglesby, Lance C. Unglesby), and Kelly & Townsend (Donald G. Kelly, William L. Townsend III). The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed the verdict, leaving the liability and causation findings intact.

Federal Rulings That Shape Louisiana Cases

Barrosse v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc., 70 F.4th 315 (5th Cir. 2023)

The Fifth Circuit held that the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act does not preempt Louisiana state-law tort claims for asbestos exposure that occurred in a “twilight zone” predating both the LHWCA’s 1972 amendments and Louisiana workers’ compensation coverage for mesothelioma (1975). Lynn Barrosse worked as an electrician at Avondale (Huntington Ingalls) from 1969 to 1977 and was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2020. Rehearing was denied July 10, 2023, and the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on October 5, 2023 (No. 23-368), leaving the Fifth Circuit ruling intact and remanding to the Eastern District of Louisiana (Case No. 2:20-cv-02042-WBV-JVM) for further proceedings.

The decision preserved Louisiana state-court remedies for a narrow but important class of pre-1972 Avondale workers.

Robichaux v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc. (E.D. La. 2023)

In Robichaux (Case No. 2:22-cv-00610, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana), Judge Darrel James Papillion denied summary judgment motions by Avondale, Uniroyal, and Foster Wheeler. Felton Robichaux worked as an insulator and carpenter at Avondale from 1961 to 1979 and was diagnosed with mesothelioma in January 2022. His claim also included take-home exposure from a family member. The court found genuine issues of material fact on substantial-factor exposure and applied Barrosse to reject the preemption defense.

Cole v. Celotex Corp., 599 So.2d 1058 (La. 1992)

Cole is the foundation of Louisiana’s pre-1980 asbestos framework. The Louisiana Supreme Court held that asbestos exposures predating August 1, 1980 are governed by the pre-comparative-fault virile share (solidary liability) regime, and that injury accrues at significant exposure for purposes of the applicable liability framework. Because pre-1980 exposures are governed by solidary liability, a Louisiana plaintiff can recover full damages from any solvent joint tortfeasor. That is why cases tracing back to Avondale’s WWII through 1970s operations, or to refinery and petrochemical work before August 1980, can have very different settlement dynamics than later exposures.

Filing Deadlines in Louisiana

Louisiana’s prescriptive period for asbestos personal injury is one year from diagnosis under La. Civ. Code Art. 3493, the specific provision for damages caused by exposure to hazardous substances. Wrongful death is one year from the date of death under Art. 3492.

Act 423 (HB 315), signed in 2024 and effective July 1, 2024, extended the general delictual prescription under Art. 3492 from one year to two years. That extension does not apply to asbestos and other hazardous-substance claims, because Art. 3493’s specific provision controls over the general Art. 3492 rule under standard Louisiana statutory construction. Current mesothelioma claimants therefore remain under the one-year prescriptive period.

Gulf Coast cases often span state lines. Texas verdicts and settlements and Texas Gulf Coast statistics cover a parallel set of refineries, chemical plants, and shipyards, with many of the same asbestos product manufacturers named as defendants.

How Louisiana Cases Compensate

Most Louisiana mesothelioma cases resolve through a combination of state-court lawsuits and asbestos bankruptcy trust fund claims. Trust claims are administrative and independent of lawsuits. Louisiana’s virile share framework for pre-1980 exposures shapes how lawsuit recoveries are allocated among defendants, but it does not change trust eligibility.