Asbestos-sickened shipyard worker loses fight against Navy supplier

A man who was diagnosed with lung disease after working on nuclear submarines at Mare Island Naval Shipyard in the 1970s has no case against the supplier of the asbestos-filled insulation, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday, because the Navy ordered the product despite being aware of its dangers.

Contractors that furnish products in compliance with the standards of a government agency, which has weighed a product’s known risks against its benefits, are protected from lawsuits for any harm the product causes, said the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco.

Gary Kase, a civilian employee, worked at the Vallejo shipyard in the early 1970s, helping to load boxes of an asbestos-laden insulation called Unibestos onto nuclear submarines and working alongside those who were cutting the material, installing it on pipes and removing it.

Yet, it nevertheless made a decision to ... continue using this asbestos product in its naval vessels ... a deliberative judgment call.

Kase’s lawyers also argued that Unibestos could not be considered military equipment because it was available on the commercial market.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has agreed with that argument and allowed suits against Metalclad and other contractors to proceed in federal courts in California and other Western states.