## Facts

- Frank Dafler worked at the New York Shipyard in Camden, New Jersey (1939–1945) and was exposed to asbestos-containing insulation and related products.
- Dafler later developed asbestosis and lung cancer and had an extensive cigarette-smoking history of nearly 45 years, quitting only after the asbestosis diagnosis.
- Plaintiffs’ medical experts testified that both asbestos exposure and smoking substantially contributed to the lung cancer and that the two factors interact in a combined effect greater than each alone.
- The defense medical expert testified that smoking alone caused the lung cancer and that asbestos exposure was not a substantial contributing factor.
- No expert quantified, in numerical terms, how much of the lung cancer was attributable to smoking versus asbestos exposure.

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence provided a legally sufficient basis for the jury to apportion lung-cancer causation and damages between asbestos exposure and cigarette smoking where experts described an interactive combined effect and did not provide numerical percentages.
2. Whether the general verdict finding asbestos to be a substantial contributing cause, and the trial court’s post-verdict molding of damages consistent with the apportionment, were supported by the record.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division affirmed the judgment.
- The court upheld the jury finding that asbestos exposure was a substantial contributing cause of Dafler’s lung cancer.
- The court upheld the jury’s apportionment of causative responsibility for lung cancer: 70% smoking and 30% asbestos exposure.
- The court approved molding the verdict to reduce lung-cancer damages consistent with the smoking/asbestos allocation and then applying the defendant’s share among asbestos product entities.

## Legal Principles

- Damages for a single injury with multiple contributing causes may be apportioned if there is a reasonable factual basis in the evidence for the allocation, even without expert testimony assigning numerical percentages.
- Testimony that causal factors interact in a combined effect greater than each alone does not, by itself, bar apportionment as a matter of law.
- A jury may infer relative causal contributions from competing expert testimony about relative risk and causal contribution, and an appellate court will not disturb the allocation if it has reasonable support and is not speculative in the legal sense.
- A trial court may mold a damages award to conform to the jury’s causation apportionment between a defendant-responsible cause and a nonparty cause.

## Conclusion

The court held that, on this record, the jury could rationally allocate lung-cancer causation and damages between cigarette smoking and asbestos exposure, and it affirmed both the liability verdict and the molded judgment reflecting the 70/30 apportionment.


Dafler v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 259 N.J. Super. 17, 611 A.2d 136 (App. Div. 1992)