U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Eastern Division

Decedent Carole Zicklin passed away from mesothelioma in September 2021. The decedent’s daughters subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a number of defendants, including PTI Union, LLC. The lawsuit alleged that the decedent was exposed to asbestos from talcum powder products that she “wore and used on a daily basis throughout her life in New York City” and during the course of her employment “at the locations mentioned above” from “large amounts of asbestos fibers emanating from certain products, manufactured, sold, or distributed by the defendants listed below.” In response, PTI Union filed a motion to dismiss, alleging that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim.

To survive a motion to dismiss pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P.12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its face. A claim is facially plausible where the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. Further, a complaint must offer more than labels and conclusions, or a formulaic recitation of the element of a cause of action to state a plausible claim for relief.

Here, PTI Union argued that the plaintiffs’ claims failed because the complaint failed to identify the products for which PTI Union was purportedly responsible for and lacked sufficient allegations to plead the requisite elements of causation. Additionally, PTI Union contended that all of the claims against it stemmed entirely from the plaintiffs’ conclusory allegations that PTI Union should be held liable for injuries that the decedent allegedly sustained as a result of using talcum powder products over a generalized, vague, and extended period of time. In response, the plaintiffs asserted that “PTI Union knows why it is a defendant in this case” and that PTI Union “manufactured and packaged talcum powder products for pharmaceutical companies.”

Upon review of the complaint, the court noted that it was apparent that the plaintiffs’ counsel “borrowed and copied allegations from another mesothelioma and/or asbestos case” as the complaint contained no factual allegations as to what the products at issue were or who manufactured them. Furthermore, while the complaint stated that the decedent was exposed to asbestos during her employment “at the locations mentioned above,” there were no allegations “above or elsewhere in the complaint” regarding employment locations. The court also noted that the allegations pertaining to the decedent’s exposure to asbestos products during her employment was incongruent with the allegations about talcum powder usage in New York – specifically, it was not clear from the complaint whether the plaintiffs alleged that the decedent was exposed to asbestos from her use of talcum powder or from “an unidentified asbestos-containing product at work,” or from both. Lastly, the court pointed out that one of the counts in the complaint only referred to defendants that were not named in the caption.

Ultimately, the court determined that the plaintiffs failed to meet the requisite pleading standard. While plaintiffs “need not provide detailed factual allegations,” there must be “some factual allegations that are enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Additionally, the pleading must provide PTI Union with “fair notice of the nature of Plaintiff’s claims and the grounds on which the claims rest.” General allegations that the decedent was in contact with “asbestos-containing products” from daily talcum powder use and over the course of her employment is simply not enough to place PTI Union on fair notice of the nature of the claims against it. At a minimum, the plaintiffs “must describe the type of product(s) the Decedent was exposed to and there must be allegations that PTI Union manufactured or distributed the product that purportedly caused Decedent’s illness.” For these reasons, the motion to dismiss the claims against PTI Union was granted.

Read the full decision here.