## Facts

- Bennie Plessinger worked at a shipyard from about 1942 to 1977 and was regularly exposed to airborne asbestos dust and fibers at work.
- The shipyard allegedly failed to provide measures to prevent asbestos-contaminated clothing from being worn home, including adequate warnings and facilities to change or wash on-site.
- Plessinger’s daughter, Wanda Quisenberry, lived in the family home until 1969 and regularly laundered her father’s work clothes, allegedly exposing her to asbestos dust and fibers on those clothes.
- Wanda was diagnosed in 2013 with malignant pleural mesothelioma allegedly caused by asbestos exposure and died about three years later.
- The estate alleged the shipyard knew or should have known household members faced a risk of exposure from contaminated work clothes and negligently failed to prevent or warn against take-home transport.

## Issues

1. Whether, under Virginia negligence law, an employer owes a duty of care to an employee’s household family member for off-premises asbestos exposure arising from asbestos carried home on work clothes, where the employer’s alleged negligence allowed such transport.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Virginia answered the certified question (as restated) in the affirmative.
- The court held that an employer may owe a duty of care to an employee’s family member who alleges exposure from asbestos on the employee’s work clothes when the family member alleges the employer’s negligence allowed asbestos fibers to be regularly transported from the workplace to the home.
- The court rejected a categorical rule that no duty can exist merely because the exposure occurred off premises and the plaintiff lacked a direct relationship with the employer.
- Two justices dissented, expressing concerns about expanding duty and potential for overly broad liability.

## Legal Principles

- Virginia negligence law recognizes a general duty to exercise ordinary care to avoid causing physical injury when a defendant’s conduct creates a reasonably foreseeable risk to others.
- Foreseeability of harm to an identifiable class of persons can support recognition of a duty, even absent privity or direct dealings between the parties.
- Duty is not strictly limited by the geographic boundary of a defendant’s premises; it may extend to off-premises injuries if the defendant’s conduct foreseeably created the risk.
- To avoid unlimited liability, the recognized duty may be confined to a defined class (household family members) and a defined mechanism of harm (regular transport of asbestos fibers from workplace to home via work clothes).

## Conclusion

The Supreme Court of Virginia recognized that an employer can owe a negligence duty to an employee’s household family member for foreseeable take-home asbestos exposure where the employer’s alleged failure to use reasonable care allowed asbestos fibers to be regularly carried from the workplace to the home.


Quisenberry v. Huntington Ingalls Inc., 296 Va. 233, 818 S.E.2d 805 (Va. 2018)