Gideon v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp‪.‬

This suit for personal injuries allegedly caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers is one of 25,000 pending in federal and state courts. After a ten-day trial, the jury returned a verdict against seven of the seventeen defendants originally named and fixed the compensatory damages at $500,100. The judge reduced the amount of the judgment to reflect the effect of the settlement that the plaintiffs had reached with three of the original defendants.