Rost, R. v. Ford Motor Company

102 A.3d 1251, 628 Pa. 56, 2014 Pa. LEXIS 2918

• Court: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
• Decided: November 6, 2014
• Docket: 309 EAL 2014 (Granted)
• Status: Published

Opinion

ORDER

PER CURIAM.

AND NOW, this 6th day of November, 2014, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is GRANTED, LIMITED TO the issues set forth below. Allocatur is DENIED as to all remaining issues. The issues, as stated by Petitioner, are:

(1) Whether — contrary to Howard, Betz, and Gregg — a plaintiff in an asbestos action may satisfy the burden of establishing substantial-factor causation by an expert’s “cumulative-exposure” theory that the expert concedes is simply an “any-exposure” theory by a different name[?]

(2) Whether the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas’ mandatory practice of consolidating unrelated asbestos cases — even where the defendants suffer severe prejudice as a result — is consistent with the Pennsylvania Rules of Civil Procedure and Due Process; whether consolidation in this case was proper; and whether the Superior Court has the authority to review a trial court’s case-consolidation decisions in asbestos cases[?]