An employer owes a common law duty of care to members of their workers’ families to prevent transmission of asbestos, when it is reasonably foreseeable that the workers, their clothing or their personal effects will act as a vector of transmitting asbestos from the workplace to home. The same is true of landowners on whose premises asbestos is used. The duty of care is owed only to members of the worker’s household, who habitually live with the worker and thus are exposed to the asbestos he brings home from work.
California Supreme Court (Liu, J.); December 1, 2016; 2016 WL 7010174