Jared Hausmann

The Drywall Evidence

At trial, Kaiser Gypsum faced testimony preserved from Munir Seen before his death, together with industrial-hygiene studies reconstructing decades of joint-compound dust. Jared Hausmann’s appellate role was to defend the verdict under New York’s sharpened causation standard.

Three Depositions and a Death

Seen immigrated from Jordan in the late 1960s and built a life through construction work in New York and New Jersey. On most working days, he encountered dry joint compound. Mixing released dust from the bag. Application placed wet material on the walls. Sanding returned the compound to the air as fine particles around his face and clothing.

He developed shortness of breath and received a mesothelioma diagnosis in 2016. He continued working as a security guard until the disease forced him to retire. He filed suit in August 2018 against twenty-six entities, not including Kaiser. After the preservation deposition, Kaiser was impleaded as a third-party defendant, took its own deposition, and later became a direct defendant after Seen’s death at sixty-nine.

Kaiser was the only defendant remaining at trial. It argued that admission of the earlier video was unfair because it had not received notice or participated when the recording was made. The trial court focused on what happened afterward. Kaiser had obtained its own opportunity to question Seen about the products, tasks, and earlier testimony while he was alive.

The First Department unanimously upheld that ruling. The absence of advance notice did not erase the later examination. The First Department held that a witness’s death before trial does not automatically make prior testimony unfair. The question is whether the opposing party had a genuine opportunity to examine the witness, regardless of when each party entered the case.

A Number for the Air

The harder appellate question concerned causation. Months before the Seen trial, New York’s Court of Appeals decided Nemeth v. Brenntag North America. A toxic-tort plaintiff must do more than prove contact with a harmful substance. The evidence must express exposure through a reliable scientific method and connect that exposure to a level capable of causing the disease.

Nemeth rejected testimony built from a glove-box simulation of cosmetic talc that did not estimate what the user actually inhaled. Kaiser argued that Seen’s proof suffered the same defect because no one could return to his old construction sites and measure the dust.

The estate’s experts used a different foundation. Historical studies had measured airborne concentrations while workers performed the same joint-compound tasks: opening bags, pouring powder, mixing, applying, and sanding. Seen supplied product identification, frequency, duration, and work practices. Experts matched those facts to the measured ranges and compared the resulting exposure with epidemiological evidence involving drywall workers.

The trial court and First Department held that the evidence satisfied Nemeth. Seen identified Kaiser bags; formula records connected the product to asbestos-containing ingredients; and industrial-hygiene studies supplied numerical exposure ranges for the tasks he performed.

On appeal, Hausmann focused on whether Kaiser had fair notice of the talc theory and whether the trial evidence was legally sufficient.

Affirmed, Then Measured Again

On May 21, 2024, the First Department unanimously upheld the liability and evidentiary rulings. Kaiser had taken its own deposition of Seen and could question him about the earlier recording. Seen’s identification of Kaiser bags, the company’s formula records, and the experts’ historically grounded dose calculations supplied legally sufficient product-identification and causation evidence. The expert disclosure also gave adequate notice that asbestos-contaminated talc would be addressed.

The jury had awarded $15 million for Seen’s forty-three months of pre-death pain and suffering and assigned seventy percent of the fault to Kaiser. The remaining thirty percent belonged to a party that had settled before trial. The appellate court ordered a new damages trial unless the estate accepted a reduction to $10 million.

The court also returned the matter for settlement-credit calculation under New York General Obligations Law section 15-108. A release of one tortfeasor reduces the claim against those remaining by the greatest of the amount stated in the release, the consideration paid, or the settling party’s equitable share.

The appellate court kept the product-identification, causation, and liability findings intact, addressed the pain-and-suffering award, and sent the settlement-credit calculation back to the trial court.

Fifty-Pound Bags of Industrial Talc

Daniel Rugg’s case began in a Pennsylvania plastics plant rather than a New York construction site. For approximately thirty years, Rugg worked in maintenance and electrical roles for Washington Penn Plastics. His duties included lifting fifty-pound bags of industrial talc and emptying them into large storage hoppers.

The trial record included evidence that the talc contained asbestos and that testing information had reached the company decades earlier. Rugg received no warning and no mask or respirator for the task. He developed symptoms in 2018, underwent testing and procedures, and received a mesothelioma diagnosis in spring 2019. He died in 2021 at sixty-four.

Sandra Rugg attended the three-week trial holding a photograph of her husband. The jury found that Washington Penn failed to provide a reasonably safe workplace. It awarded $1.4 million to the estate, $1.65 million in wrongful-death damages, and $750,000 for Sandra’s loss of consortium—a total of $3.8 million.

Hausmann served on the plaintiffs’ trial team. After the verdict, he briefed and argued the opposition to Washington Penn’s motion to set it aside. The company raised questions of statutory interpretation and workers’ compensation exclusivity. The trial court denied the motion.

The Rugg Verdict and Resolution

Delay damages increased the entered judgment to $4,019,970.07. Washington Penn appealed in December 2022, and the Superior Court assigned the matter number 13 EDA 2023.

Washington Penn withdrew and discontinued the appeal on January 18, 2023. A settlement stipulation followed, and the trial court approved the resolution on February 1.

Later federal insurance litigation made the settlement amount public. In its coverage action against Phoenix Insurance and Travelers, Washington Penn identified the underlying Rugg resolution as a $3 million settlement and sought coverage for defense and settlement costs.

Rugg’s case produced a $3.8 million verdict, a judgment exceeding $4 million after delay damages, and a $3 million negotiated resolution after the appeal was withdrawn.

Civil-Conspiracy Claims in Jones

In Jones v. Pneumo Abex, John Jones alleged that exposure during construction and automotive work caused lung cancer. His estate pursued civil-conspiracy claims against Pneumo Abex and Owens-Illinois, arguing that companies had agreed to conceal asbestos hazards. The trial court granted summary judgment, and the Fifth District reversed after finding triable issues.

Hausmann wrote an amicus brief for the Illinois Trial Lawyers Association supporting the plaintiffs. The brief argued that civil conspiracy remained a valid Illinois cause of action, served sound public policy, and should allow mass-tort claimants to present a fully developed evidentiary record to a jury.

The Illinois Supreme Court clarified that earlier asbestos-conspiracy precedents remained relevant and returned the matter for further appellate analysis. The majority expressly left open the possibility that the plaintiffs’ appeal could ultimately succeed.

As amicus counsel, Hausmann addressed a question whose consequences extended beyond the parties: how Illinois civil-conspiracy precedent should apply when asbestos claimants seek a jury trial on a fully developed record.

Appellate Training and Asbestos Litigation

Hausmann entered private practice after two years in the Staff Attorney’s Office of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. He reviewed district-court records, researched federal questions, and drafted proposed opinions for appellate judges.

That work trained attention on the parts of a trial that remain after the courtroom disappears: notice, objections, deposition designations, expert methodology, statutory preservation, verdict forms, post-trial rulings, and the standard of review.

He graduated summa cum laude from Eastern Illinois University and magna cum laude from Saint Louis University School of Law. His student publications addressed federalism, procedural due process, popular sovereignty, jurisprudence, and Federal Reserve oversight. He joined Simmons Hanly Conroy in 2016, was elevated to shareholder in 2023, and is currently a partner in the Alton office concentrating on discovery, post-trial motions, and appeals.