This book is all about "one stop shopping."  The book is designed to afford the reader one place to look for the answer to the most common questions that confront an asbestos litigator. 

Like many lawyers, when I began practicing law in 1988, it became immediately apparent that California civil procedure was incredibly complex.  There were simply too many places to look to find the answer to most basic civil procedure questions: how much money is a witness fee that must accompany a deposition subpoena?  If my answer to a discovery request is due 30 days after service, and that day falls on a Saturday, may I provide answers on Monday, or will those answers be considered late?  On time?  Etc., etc.

However, almost every young attorney I knew also agreed that it was best to start any civil litigation question by first consulting the gray-colored volumes of Brown and Weil California Practice Guide: Civil Procedure Before Trial (The Rutter Group)^tm.  Those books consolidated and coordinated the California Rules of Court, the Civil Code, and Government Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the decisional law, etc., so that the reader could engage in "one stop shopping" to answer 90% of all the California civil procedure questions that confronted the young lawyer. 

This book was written so that the reader could engage in "one stop shopping" when it came to asbestos personal injury and wrongful death products liability decisions.  The reader could look at the Table of Contents and readily find every California asbestos appellate decision that discussed drywall joint compound, or market share liability, or loss of consortium damages, or punitive damages, or how to analyze an asbestos statute of limitations defense.  I wanted to write a book that summarized a hefty body of California law and made it accessible - so that the reader could find answers, relatively quickly, to the most common legal questions that related to the substantive law and legal elements of proof as has been decided in the California courts in the published asbestos decisions.

It is my hope that this book serves that purpose well. 

Stephen Healy is a trial attorney specializing in serious injury and wrongful death cases.  His practice focusses on occupational and asbestos-caused disease, mesothelioma, lung cancer, asbestosis.  Contact him at sjh@stephenhealy.com.