D. Brooks Smith, Chief Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Washington, D.C., in June 2018.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled, creating a split among circuits, that a group of shipowners being sued for allegedly exposing sailors to asbestos failed to preserve a 30-year-old jurisdictional challenge.
The ruling, issued Tuesday by a split three-judge panel in In re Asbestos Products Liability Litigation, overruled decisions from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and reinstated claims by merchant mariners for an adjudication on the merits decades after they were filed.
