In July 2013, plaintiff’s decedent, Jeffrey Emerson, 68, was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma. He attributed the disease to his employment, from 1971 to 1995, as a boilermaker at the Southern Pacific Railroad, where he claimed he was exposed to asbestos. Emerson sued the railroad, alleging that he was regularly exposed to asbestos at its Sacramento Locomotive Shops, both directly through his job and as a bystander to the work of other craftsmen. Emerson died on Jan. 24, 2014, before the start trial, and ten days after he was deposed as a plaintiff. His widow, plaintiff Karen Emerson, 72, sued multiple companies, but all settled for undisclosed amounts, and the case proceeded against only Union Pacific Railroad Co. (Southern Pacific Railroad merged with Union Pacific in 1997). Karen Emerson contended that Southern Pacific, for more than 20 years, had used many types of asbestos products, including in its diesel locomotives and in piping around its facilities. She further maintained that the railroad did not comply with regulatory requirements for asbestos for at least 15 years. Instead, it allowed workers to be exposed to asbestos without proper protection throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s. Only in the mid- to late-1980s did Southern Pacific begin to implement some safety measures. The case proceeded under the Federal Employers Liability Act, which governs claims for railroad-workplace . At trial, Union Pacific argued that Jeffrey Emerson died, not from asbestos-caused mesothelioma, but from lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking. Emerson allegedly quit smoking in the 1980s, although medical records from 2013 contained references to both Chantix and a smoking-cessation program prescription. (Emerson’s second wife also smoked and died from lung cancer in 2011; the court excluded evidence of the second-hand smoke exposure and his deceased wife’s cancer.) Alternatively, Union Pacific argued that, if Emerson did have mesothelioma, it was caused not by asbestos exposure at Southern Pacific, but by earlier exposures in the Navy. Karen Emerson noted that Union Pacific’s argument that Emerson was not exposed at the railroad was undercut by an internal company document stating that he was extensively exposed there. Union Pacific contended that the memo, from a medical monitoring physician, was a reference to Emerson’s Navy exposure as a ship-fitter. The results of a published study reflecting minimal asbestos exposures from diesel-era locomotive work by Union Pacific’s expert, Fred W. Boelter, were excluded from evidence by the court., Jeffrey Emerson was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma, a fatal cancer, in July 2013. He died on Jan. 24, 2014. During the months before his death, his doctors provided care and treatment. Karen Emerson was Emerson’s third wife. They were married on Aug. 11, 2012. She testified about the extensive suffering her husband endured during his battle with mesothelioma. He was treated at the Mayo Clinic with chemotherapy and 30 rounds of radiation. Post-death tissue-analysis revealed extensive asbestos fibers in his lung tissue. She sought wrongful death damages. Union Pacific noted that the same post-death tissue also revealed Jeffrey Emerson suffered from moderate emphysema and had carbon residue in his lungs.