Mechanic's Mesothelioma Death Leads To $1.8 Million Judgment Against Ford

William Oddo Jr. spent twenty-four years as an automobile mechanic for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office, from 1972 to 1996. The court record describes him breathing brake dust while repairing the department's Ford vehicles. The family also alleged a second, residential exposure: for one year, from 1972 to 1973, Oddo lived in a home whose driveway was built from fill left over from Johns-Manville products, fill the plaintiffs said carried asbestos-bearing talc sold by Southern Talc Company.

Oddo was eighty-one when he was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2011. He filed suit on June 3, 2011 and sat for a deposition one month before he died that August. His wife, Doris Oddo, and his two sons, William Oddo III and Steven Oddo, converted the case into a survival and wrongful death action against the two defendants still in it after years of settlements and dismissals: Ford, and Southern Talc Company, later known as Sud-Chemie, Inc. The appeal on that side was taken by Clariant Corporation.

Trial began in Orleans Parish Civil District Court on November 26, 2012 and ran about two weeks. Seven experts testified, covering pathology, epidemiology, industrial hygiene, toxicology and pulmonary medicine, and Oddo's videotaped deposition was played for the jury. The jury answered twelve interrogatories. It found that Oddo's exposure to Ford's asbestos-containing products was a substantial contributing cause of his mesothelioma and that his exposure to Southern Talc's product was not, yet it also found Southern Talc negligent and allocated fault sixty-five percent to Ford and thirty-five percent to Southern Talc. It set survival damages at $2,301,393.15 and wrongful death damages at $2,100,000, being $900,000 to Doris Oddo and $600,000 to each son.

On January 8, 2013 the trial court entered judgment totaling $4,401,393.15. It split the survival damages into virile shares, $460,278.62 against Ford and the same against Southern Talc, a calculation the judgment tied to the five entities the jury found had substantially contributed to the illness. It divided the wrongful death damages by fault instead: against Ford, $585,000 to the widow and $390,000 to each son, with Southern Talc cast for the remaining thirty-five percent.

Both defendants took suspensive appeals. On August 20, 2015 the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal held that the verdict against Southern Talc could not stand, because the jury had found in one answer that its product was not a substantial contributing cause and then held it liable anyway. Reviewing the record itself, the court found no expert testimony that the driveway talc produced exposure above background levels, and it reversed the judgment against Southern Talc in both the survival and wrongful death actions. Ford's liability was affirmed, the court rejecting the argument that decades of brake work was not substantial exposure. The court amended the fault allocation to sixty-five percent Ford, twenty-five percent Union Carbide and ten percent Higgins, and affirmed the trial court's judgment in all other respects. Ford's own award was unchanged, leaving $1,825,278.62 against it. The Louisiana Supreme Court denied Ford's writ application on November 6, 2015. Mickey P. Landry, Frank J. Swarr and Philip C. Hoffman of Landry & Swarr represented the Oddo family, with Robert E. Arceneaux.