Elorreaga v. ABB, Inc.

Background

Roberto Elorreaga and Rosemary Elorreaga originally filed this asbestos action in San Francisco Superior Court against approximately twenty-five defendants. The defendants removed the case to federal court. Roberto Elorreaga died in October 2021, and his family pursued the case. The plaintiffs alleged that he was exposed to asbestos from defendants’ products while serving in the United States Navy aboard the USS Rupertus and USS Cowell, and that the exposure caused malignant pleural mesothelioma and his death.

The plaintiffs asserted six causes of action, including loss of consortium under federal maritime law, and sought punitive damages. General Electric Company and ViacomCBS filed the motion addressed in this order. They argued that federal maritime law barred both punitive damages and loss-of-consortium damages. They also argued that the plaintiffs’ California negligence and strict-liability claims were redundant because the same claims were brought under maritime law.

Legal standard

The defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint states a legally sufficient claim. At this stage, the court accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and views them in the plaintiffs’ favor, but does not accept conclusory allegations or unreasonable inferences.

Punitive damages

The court applied a framework from the Supreme Court’s decisions in Atlantic Sounding v. Townsend and The Dutra Group v. Batterton. The framework asks whether the requested relief was historically available for the particular general-maritime-law claim, whether a statute expressly precludes it, and whether policy considerations nevertheless require it.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ argument that Atlantic Sounding made punitive damages available here. Atlantic Sounding recognized punitive damages for a general maritime maintenance-and-cure claim, but Batterton held that punitive damages were unavailable for an unseaworthiness claim because there was no historical basis for them for that particular claim. The plaintiffs asserted negligence and strict-liability claims but offered no evidence that punitive damages had historically been available for those claims under general maritime law. The court therefore granted the defendants’ motion as to the plaintiffs’ request for punitive damages.

Loss-of-consortium damages

The court held that Ninth Circuit precedent continued to bar loss-of-consortium damages under general maritime law. The Ninth Circuit’s decision in Smith v. Trinidad held that loss-of-consortium damages were unavailable under both the Jones Act and general maritime law. The district court concluded that Smith was not clearly irreconcilable with the Supreme Court’s later decisions in Atlantic Sounding and Batterton, and therefore continued to apply Smith. The court granted the motion to dismiss on this basis.

California claims

The defendants also sought dismissal of the California negligence and strict-liability claims as duplicative of the maritime claims. The plaintiffs argued that dismissal was premature because they did not yet know whether the asbestos exposure occurred at sea aboard Navy ships or on land while Elorreaga worked at a shipyard. The court found that ongoing discovery had not established with certainty where the exposure occurred. It therefore denied the motion to dismiss the California causes of action.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part the motion to dismiss. It granted the motion as to the plaintiffs’ requests for punitive damages and loss-of-consortium damages under general maritime law, and denied the motion as to the plaintiffs’ California causes of action. The order also terminated Docket No. 94.