October 30, 2018
Charles Abbott Selected as a 2018 Top Lawyer by New Orleans Magazine
Congratulations to Charles Abbott for being selected as a "2018 Top Lawyer" by New Orleans Magazine! Charles was recognized as a top lawyer in Mass Tort Litigation/Class Actions.
Charles Abbott, based in our New Orleans office, has been litigating mass tort matters in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas his entire career. In addition to leading the management of large dockets of asbestos cases on behalf of both premises and products defendants, including a Fortune 100 chemical company and Fortune 500 company previously involved in the printing and paper industries, he has been flagged by clients to assist with or lead trial teams in toxic tort matters in some of the most notorious “judicial hellholes,” ranging from a silica trial in Beaumont, Texas, dioxin trials in Jones County, Mississippi, an asbestos trial in Dallas County, Texas, and numerous asbestos trials in Orleans Parish, Louisiana.
His most recent asbestos case success, in a matter pending in Orleans Parish, was the granting of one of his client’s motion for summary judgment on the basis of a bare-metal defense. Mr. Abbott argued that his client, who manufactures marine diesel engines, could not be held liable for a Plaintiff’s alleged exposure to asbestos in insulating materials which may have been put on an exhaust system attached to his client’s engine. The Court granted the motion for summary judgment confirming that the Plaintiff could not meet his burden of proving that he was exposed to asbestos manufactured, supplied, sold, or installed by the marine engine company. Courts all over the country have conflicting views on the bare-metal defense in the asbestos litigation context, and this particular issue was recently argued in September of 2018 before the United States Supreme Court.
In addition to his extensive asbestos practice and experience, Charles currently serves as national counsel for four (4) separate clients in connection with their silica litigation, national counsel for another client in connection with its benzene and butadiene litigation, and lead defense liaison counsel on behalf of a Fortune 100 company in connection with a putative class action filed in Orleans Parish, Louisiana in a case involving allegations of improper sterilization of medical devices at a local hospital.
