The 25-year-old asbestos multidistrict litigation has shed dozens of shipowner defendants after U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno pruned the docket this week.
Noting the complex history of the litigation, which started in Ohio in the mid-1980s and swelled to include 50,000 cases after it was transferred as an MDL to the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Robreno granted motions to dismiss filed by defendants claiming a lack of personal jurisdiction in 418 cases, but denied motions to dismiss in 147 cases citing improper service of process.
