Washington Mesothelioma Verdicts and Settlements

Washington’s concentration of shipyard, paper mill, and industrial exposure has produced an active mesothelioma litigation record. Recent verdicts, appellate rulings, and a federal bench trial have all shaped the state’s asbestos case landscape across 2024 and 2025.

Notable Washington Outcomes

The Longview Fibre Paper Mill Verdict

A King County jury awarded $13.5 million to the estate and family of Robert Conner, a former Longview Fibre paper mill worker. Conner was exposed to asbestos at the Longview, Washington mill between the 1960s and 1980. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in December 2023 and died in March 2024.

The lawsuit named Union Carbide, which sold raw asbestos, and two predecessors of Elementis Chemicals, which delivered asbestos to Longview Fibre. Longview Fibre itself was not a defendant. The jury awarded $5.5 million to Robert Conner’s estate, $5 million to his widow Dorothy Conner, and $3 million to their children.

The case is part of a broader pattern of paper mill asbestos exposure litigation concentrated in Cowlitz County, where the former Longview Fibre mill is one of several documented exposure sites.

The Pierce County Kotzerke Default Judgment

Pierce County Superior Court entered a $16,219,398.25 default judgment in 2025 against Asbestos Corporation Limited, a Canadian asbestos supplier, in Kotzerke v. Asbestos Corporation Limited (No. 23-2-05287). The judgment is a default, not a jury verdict. It followed the defendant’s repeated discovery violations and contempt, including approximately $68,000 in sanctions imposed in February 2025 before the court entered default.

The award included approximately $1.72 million in economic damages, $5 million for pain and suffering, $7.5 million in loss of consortium to widow Jolene R. Kotzerke, and $1 million each to two daughters. Steven “Steve” Kotzerke died in 2022 of asbestos-related lung cancer following industrial asbestos exposure between 1960 and 1978.

Budd v. Kaiser Gypsum

In 2020, a King County jury awarded $13.5 million to Raymond Budd in a mesothelioma case against Kaiser Gypsum over asbestos-containing joint compound. Budd was exposed at his family’s drywall business from 1962 to 1972.

The Washington Court of Appeals, Division One, affirmed the verdict on February 22, 2022, rejecting Kaiser’s nine appellate arguments, including challenges to proximate causation, medical causation, and jury selection. The case confirmed that joint compound exposure at a small family business can support a successful Washington mesothelioma verdict.

The PSNS Federal Tort Claims Act Bench Trial

On October 15, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington issued a no-liability ruling in Perkins v. United States (No. 3:22-cv-05701-RJB), a Federal Tort Claims Act bench trial before Judge Robert J. Bryan. The case was brought by Harang Joseph Perkins as personal representative of Geraldine Rabb Perkins, who died June 6, 2020 of sarcomatoid malignant mesothelioma. Her husband worked as a Navy Machinist Mate at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard from 1968 to 1974, and the suit alleged take-home and environmental asbestos exposure from his work clothes and the shipyard area.

The court rejected causation under Washington’s substantial-factor test, excluded the plaintiffs’ experts as unreliable, and found the take-home and environmental exposure too low to be considered a substantial factor. The court rejected “every exposure above background” and “cumulative dose” theories. The ruling narrows the path for future FTCA take-home claims against the Navy in Washington. It does not affect product-manufacturer claims by PSNS workers, which remain viable.

2025 Appellate Developments

Cockrum v. C.H. Murphy/Clark-Ullman

On May 29, 2025, the Washington Supreme Court decided Cockrum v. C.H. Murphy/Clark-Ullman, Inc. (No. 102881-4), reversing the court of appeals in a case involving a worker who developed mesothelioma after decades of asbestos exposure at an Alcoa aluminum facility. The court revised the deliberate injury exception under RCW 51.24.020 for latent occupational diseases like mesothelioma. Employees may now sue employers outside the workers’ compensation system if the employer had actual knowledge that injury was a “virtual certainty,” replacing the prior “absolute certainty” standard.

The opinion explicitly overruled Walston v. Boeing Co. (2014), describing that earlier ruling as “demonstrably incorrect and harmful.” The decision opens a narrow but meaningful path around workers’ compensation exclusivity for latent-disease claims involving employer conduct.

Little v. Hardie-Tyres Co., Inc.

On August 25, 2025, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division One, issued a published opinion in Little v. Hardie-Tyres Co., Inc. (No. 86101-8-I), reversing a $5.5 million plaintiff judgment for Clifton “Cliff” Little, who developed mesothelioma. The case involved successor liability against “New H-T,” which had acquired the assets of an earlier Hardie-Tyres entity. The court held that under Washington’s product-line successor liability doctrine, a successor must continue manufacturing or selling the same defective (asbestos-containing) product line to inherit predecessor tort liability. Because New H-T did not manufacture or sell asbestos-containing products, it could not be held liable under product-line theory.

A Petition for Review (No. 105018-6) is pending before the Washington Supreme Court.

Punitive Damages in Washington

Washington does not allow punitive damages at common law. Punitive (exemplary) damages are not available unless expressly authorized by statute, a rule established in 1891 and consistently upheld since. No Washington statute authorizes punitive damages in asbestos personal injury or wrongful death cases. As a result, every Washington asbestos verdict and judgment is compensatory, covering economic damages, non-economic damages, and loss of consortium. This contextualizes Washington verdict sizes against states where punitive damages are available.

Pacific Northwest Parallel

A parallel Pacific Northwest case in Oregon produced one of the largest regional verdicts of 2025. A Portland jury awarded $34.2 million to retired Dillingham Shipyard laborer Richard D. Long on September 5, 2025 against John Crane Inc. for asbestos gaskets and packing products used on Swan Island. The verdict reflects a broader pattern of eight-figure PNW outcomes in shipyard exposure cases.

For comparison, Pennsylvania shipyard and steel mill verdicts follow a similar multi-defendant product-manufacturer model. Shipyard exposure in Philadelphia and Puget Sound involved many of the same product manufacturers, and cases across both coasts often name overlapping defendants.

Filing Deadlines

Washington has a three-year statute of limitations for personal injury claims under RCW 4.16.080(2), applied to mesothelioma via the discovery rule from the date of diagnosis. Wrongful death claims must also be filed within three years, measured from the date of death. The state’s product liability statute (RCW 7.72.060) sets a separate 12-year useful safe life statute of repose, which is distinct from the limitations period itself. Three years is longer than Pennsylvania’s two-year deadline and longer than Tennessee’s one-year deadline, but the complexity of tracing decades-old exposure across multiple employers and products means investigation can take time.