Judge Overturns Verdict Against Georgia-Pacific

January 2, 2006 - Officials for the Georgia-Pacific Corporation, based in Atlanta, report that a Dallas, Texas, county judge overturned a $13.6 million asbestos verdict awarded this past June to the family of Timothy Shawn Bostic, who died of mesothelioma on Sept. 5, 2003. 

The judge, Russell H. Roden, granted the company’s request for a mistrial and ruled that the case must be tried again.  This will actually be the third trial for this case and just one of many that involve product liability claims against Georgia-Pacific Corporation in regards to a joint compound that the company manufactured from the mid-1960s to 1977. The compound contained hazardous asbestos.

The company, now part of Koch Industries of Wichita, Kansas, maintains that the compound did not cause Bostic’s illness or the illnesses of others who’ve filed claims against Georgia-Pacific in regards to the toxicity of the same product.  Most of the claimants, like Bostic, are currently suffering from mesothelioma, a lung cancer for which the only known cause is exposure to asbestos.