Bruce T. Bishop

• Defense of lawsuits for personal injury and property damage arising out of the installation and/or removal or presence of asbestos-containing products.
• Defense of lawsuits for personal injury and wrongful death arising from the use of allegedly defective products. Cases include experience with automobiles, medical devices, automobile batteries, drugs, asbestos, cranes, industrial and farm equipment.
• Defense of common carriers, including trucking firms and a major airline in personal injury litigation.
• Defense of helicopter parts manufacturer, aircraft engine manufacturers, and military aircraft manufacturers in multiple deaths/personal injury products liability actions.
• Defense and prosecution under CERCLA and related state law theories of liability for major railroad carriers and a major agricultural farming company.
• Assistance in the prosecution of insurance coverage actions by manufacturers against their insureds, particularly on trigger of coverage and related issues.
• Previous experience in the defense of personal injury suits based on alleged medical malpractice. These include suits brought against doctors, nurses, hospitals, and other health care professionals.

Relevant Experience in Asbestos Litigation
 

• Co-trial counsel in the first personal injury case to be tried to a verdict involving injury and death from alleged exposure to asbestos as a building occupant rather than occupational/household exposure. The case resulted in a defense verdict.
• Virginia counsel for the Asbestos Claims Facility, a consortium of insurers and asbestos products manufacturers, until the Facility's dissolution in October of 1988. While representing the Facility, he was a member of the National State of the Art Issues Committee and helped to spearhead the defense of conspiracy claims against Facility members on a nationwide basis.
• Defense of Owens-Corning Fiberglass in numerous cases throughout the country, serving as a member of their national trial team.
• Co-counsel for Celotex and Carey Canada, Inc., in a $150 million lawsuit filed by the state of West Virginia to recover the cost of abating asbestos in all state-owned buildings in the state of West Virginia, as well as the same companies in a similar action filed by the commonwealth of Virginia. He also provided assistance in the defense of numerous other property damage cases throughout the United States to Celotex and Carey Canada, Inc.
• Special medical and state-of-the-art trial counsel for Celotex and Carey Canada, Inc., in the Federal Reserve Bank property damage litigation pending in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which was settled on the eve of trial.
• Owens-Corning Fiberglass lead trial counsel in the National School Property Damage Class Action Phase One Trial in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
• Trial Counsel for the Celotex Corporation in the personal injury/property damage insurance coverage litigation in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Middle District of Florida.
• Representation of Rapid-American Corporation in asbestos-related trials throughout the United States, including large consolidations in Michigan, New York and West Virginia, among other states.
• Representation of a major oil refinery in premises liability litigation in Texas, as well as cases arising out of exposure to asbestos at a South African refinery. At present, he is coordinating the medical defense of a major oil refining company in the West Virginia asbestos personal injury litigation.
• National trial counsel for the Center for Claims Resolution, and together with other members of the asbestos personal injury group at Willcox & Savage, helped coordinate the retention and development of expert witnesses throughout the country on behalf of CCR defendants.
• Defense of several brake defendants in a wrongful death action filed by the estate of an auto mechanic who died from mesothelioma which was alleged to have resulted from his employment as an automotive mechanic for 20 years. This case resulted in a defense verdict.
• Defense of asbestos defendants at trial in federal and state court throughout the United States, including Maine, Rhode Island, New York, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, Idaho, Kentucky, Texas, California, Washington, Oregon, among others.
• Retained by Halliburton to assist nationwide in the defense of its subsidiaries, Brown & Root and Worthington Industries.
• Retained by Dow-Union Carbide to assist nationwide in its defense and in the development of expert witnesses on its behalf.
• Retained by Exxon Mobil Corporation to assist nationally in the defense of their asbestos products liability litigation, including co-trial counsel in the 2002 W. Virginia Consolidation Trial in Charleston, West Virginia.
• Has been retained by Allied Signal nationally to assist on medical/scientific issues, and to serve as one of their National Trial Counsel.