South Carolina Jury Awards $32 Million After Woman Dies of Mesothelioma From Secondhand Asbestos on Husband's Work Clothes

For years, Kathy Weist did what many wives did without a second thought: she laundered her husband's work clothes at the end of each day. During the 1980s, Robert Weist worked for Metal Masters at a Louis Rich Company food-processing facility owned by Kraft Heinz in South Carolina, a period when asbestos was still used in industrial settings. Neither Robert nor Kathy knew that each time she shook out those clothes and loaded the washing machine, she was inhaling asbestos fibers.

Kathy was also exposed to asbestos brought home by her father and uncle, who worked around asbestos-containing products at other facilities over the preceding decades. The exposures accumulated over time, though she never set foot on the plant floor herself. In 2019, she was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the lungs that is almost exclusively caused by asbestos. She died in 2020 at age 62.

The case went to trial in September 2021 in Richland County before retired South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Jean Toal, who came out of retirement to preside over the state's consolidated asbestos docket. Attorneys Bonnie Steinwolf and Kush Shukla of Meirowitz and Wasserberg served as co-counsel alongside Scott Frost of the Frost Law Firm, who led the trial. The plaintiff's team argued that both Kraft Heinz, as the premises owner, and Metal Masters Inc., the contractor that supplied asbestos-containing materials, bore responsibility for the contamination Robert Weist and the other workers unknowingly carried home.

After four days of testimony, the jury returned a unanimous verdict on September 24, 2021. It awarded $11 million in survival damages for Kathy Weist's suffering, $10 million in wrongful death damages, and $1 million to Robert Weist for loss of consortium. In a separate punitive-damages phase, jurors assessed an additional $10 million against Kraft Heinz alone, finding that its conduct warranted punishment beyond the compensatory award.

The total verdict of $32 million was one of the largest asbestos verdicts in South Carolina history. No post-trial reduction or appellate modification has been reported in available public records.