By Legal Newsline

HARTFORD, Conn. (Legal Newsline) – The Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of a medical-monitoring lawsuit on behalf of workers who had been exposed to asbestos during a reconstruction project, saying they failed to provide enough evidence showing they’d suffered some type of injury from the incident.

The decision delicately sidesteps the question of whether Connecticut law allows medical-monitoring claims at all, with the justices saying there was no need to decide the issue at this time. It was enough for the trial judge to determine that plaintiff experts failed to raise a question of fact about whether the workers needed to be monitored for future signs of asbestos-related disease, the court said.

“Although medical monitoring is no longer a novel theory of recovery in many states, whether such recovery is permitted in Connecticut is still an open question of law,” Chief Justice Richard Robinson wrote in a unanimous decision originally issued last September and published June 29. “Even if we were to recognize a medical monitoring claim in the absence of any physical manifestation of injury under Connecticut law, the plaintiffs nevertheless failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact as to certain elements of the claim, in particular, whether the provision of medical monitoring is reasonably necessary for them.”

Danny Dougan sued Sikorsky Aircraft, now a unit of Lockheed Martin, and others in 2012 following a 2009 incident in which he and other workers discovered they had been working on a power-plant reconstruction site that contained small amounts of asbestos in some of the insulated pipe. Dougan’s lawyers formed a proposed class action on behalf of all the workers on the site, seeking money for medical monitoring to detect any future signs of asbestos-related disease.

The defendants moved for summary judgment, saying the plaintiffs didn’t supply any evidence they had been injured and it was against public policy for Connecticut courts to recognize a claim for medical monitoring in the absence of physical harm. Only Dougan submitted a medical report and even his expert, M. Saud Anwar, acknowledged “a significant percentage of people who are exposed to and inhale asbestos …never develop clinical symptoms.”

The trial judge granted the motion in March 2017, saying no expert had examined the medical records of any other plaintiffs and no one had been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease. Dougan died of apparently unrelated causes before the end of the year, eliminating the only plaintiff with any medical evidence at all. 

The plaintiffs appealed, saying the trial court incorrectly concluded Connecticut doesn’t allow claims for medical monitoring in the absence of physical injury.

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By David Matthau, NJ 101.5 News

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities this week awarded two new contracts to offshore wind companies to construct the next phase of a planned massive wind farm out in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of South Jersey.

Nevertheless, questions remain about the financial impact of the project on ratepayers, and how hundreds of giant wind turbines will affect tourism along the shore and impact schools of fish and whales out in the ocean.

The group Save our Shoreline has collected more than 10,000 signatures opposing the state’s wind farm plan, in part because it is expected to increase the cost of electricity in the near term, but no one is sure by how much.

When BPU President Joe Fiordaliso was asked what kind of an increase is anticipated for the average Jersey home or business, and how long the higher rates would be in effect once the wind farm project was constructed in 2035, he said “clean energy costs money, there’s no getting around it, however as time goes on those costs diminish.”

Related wind energy stories:
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10 Things You Didn’t Know About Offshore Wind Energy

He said an example of this is in the solar industry, where costs are half of what they were 14 years ago.

“When we look at the clean energy industry we also have to look at the economic benefits that we’re getting, the thousands of jobs that are being created,” Fiordaliso said.

He noted we should take into account the infusion of billions of dollars into the New Jersey economy from this kind of undertaking.

“We will be the supply chain for the entire east coast as far as offshore wind is concerned,” he said. “So you can just imagine the amount of money, the amount of economic enhancement that’s going to occur.”

Fiordaliso said when we’re talking about a shift to clean energy we need to consider up-front cost but also the economic benefit that will follow.

When asked about concerns that the electromagnetic field created by the wind farm may disrupt the migration of fluke and other fish and cause problems for whales that rely on sonar to navigate the seas, he said the BPU is working “with our friends in Europe

Read More: NJ offshore wind farms: Pros and cons