Montana

Warren Buffett-owned BNSF Railway contributed to 2 deaths in Montana town where asbestos sickened thousands, jury finds

Published

2 years ago

April 23, 2024

Warren Buffett-owned BNSF Railway contributed to 2 deaths in Montana town where asbestos sickened thousands, jury finds

A federal jury on Monday said BNSF Railway contributed to the deaths of two people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago when tainted mining material was shipped through a Montana town where thousands have been sickened.

The jury awarded $4 million each in compensatory damages to the estates of the two plaintiffs, who died in 2020. Jurors said asbestos-contaminated vermiculite that spilled in the rail yard in the town of Libby, Montana was a substantial factor in the plaintiffs’ illnesses and deaths.

Family members of the two victims hugged their attorneys after the verdict was announced. An attorney for the plaintiffs said the ruling brought some accountability, but one family member told The Associated Press that no amount of money would replace her lost sister.

“I’d rather have her than all the money in the world,” Judith Hemphill said of her sister, Joyce Walder.

The vermiculite from Libby has high concentrations of naturally-occurring asbestos and was used in insulation and for other commercial purposes in homes and businesses across the U.S.

After being mined from a mountaintop outside town, it was loaded onto rail cars that sometimes spilled the material in the Libby rail yard. Residents have described piles of vermiculite being stored in the yard and dust from the facility blowing through downtown Libby.

The jury did not find that BNSF acted intentionally or with indifference so no punitive damages were awarded. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. acquired BNSF in 2010, two decades after the W.R. Grace & Co. vermiculite mine near Libby shut down and stopped shipping the contaminated mineral.

The estates of the two victims argued that the railroad knew the asbestos-tainted vermiculite was dangerous and failed to clean it up. Both lived near the rail yard decades ago and died from mesothelioma, a rare lung cancer linked to asbestos exposure.

The pollution in Libby has been cleaned up, largely at public expense. W.R. Grace, which played a central role in the town’s tragedy, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and paid $1.8 billion into an asbestos trust fund to settle future cases.

Yet the long timeframe over which asbestos-related diseases develop means people previously exposed are likely to continue getting sick for years to come, health officials say.

The case in federal civil court over the two deaths was the first of numerous lawsuits against the Texas-based railroad corporation to reach trial over its past operations in Libby. Current and former residents of the small town near the U.S.-Canada border want BNSF held accountable, accusing it of playing a role in asbestos exposure that health officials say has killed several hundred people and sickened thousands.

“This is good news. This is the first community exposure case that will hold the railroad accountable for what they’ve done,” said Mark Lanier, an attorney for Walder and Hemphill’s estates.

The railroad was considering whether to appeal, said a BNSF spokesperson, who referred to it as a “very sad case.”

“They (the jury) had the difficult task of evaluating conduct that occurred more than 50 years ago, before BNSF ever existed,” said Kendall Sloan, the railroad’s director of external communications.

BNSF attorney Chad Knight told jurors last week the railroad’s employees didn’t know the vermiculite was filled with hazardous microscopic asbestos fibers.

“In the ‘50s, ’60s and ’70s no one in the public suspected there might be health concerns,” Knight said Friday.

The railroad’s experts also suggested during the trial that the plaintiffs could have been exposed to asbestos elsewhere.

The railroad said it was obliged under law to ship the vermiculite, which was used in insulation and for other commercial purposes, and that W.R. Grace employees had concealed the health hazards from the railroad.

U.S. District Judge Brian Morris had instructed the jury it could only find the railroad negligent based on its actions in the Libby Railyard, not for hauling the vermiculite.

Former Libby resident Bill Johnston, who followed the trial, said he was glad the victims’ estates got a substantial award.

Johnston, 67, recalled playing in piles of vermiculite at the rail yard as a child and helping his father add piles of the material to their home garden, where it was used as a soil amendment. He, his two siblings and their parents have all been diagnosed with asbestos-related diseases, Johnston said Monday.

“They didn’t do anything intentionally to cause this harm to their body. Other people knew about it and didn’t care,” he said of Libby asbestos victims. “What’s that worth? It’s hard to put a value on that. But when you say you’re going to die prematurely or the life you have left is going to be tethered to an oxygen bottle, there should be some value that makes their life easier in the end.”

BNSF was formed in 1995 from the merger of Burlington Northern railroad, which operated in Libby for decades, and the Santa Fe Pacific Corporation.

Looming over the proceedings was W.R. Grace, which operated the mountaintop vermiculite mine 7 miles (11 kilometers) outside of Libby until it closed in 1990. Morris referred to the chemical company as “the elephant in the room” during the BNSF trial and reminded jurors repeatedly that the case was about the railroad’s conduct, not W.R. Grace’s separate liability.

Federal prosecutors in 2005 indicted W. R. Grace and executives from the company on criminal charges over the contamination in Libby. A jury acquitted them following a 2009 trial.

The Environmental Protection Agency descended on Libby after 1999 news reports of illnesses and deaths among mine workers and their families. In 2009 the agency declared in Libby the nation’s first ever public health emergency under the federal Superfund cleanup program.

A second trial against the railroad over the death of a Libby resident is scheduled for May in federal court in Missoula.

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Montana

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Published

9 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Apparent AI Glitch in Filing by Montana Public Defender, Recent Congressional Candidate

Everyone makes mistakes, even experienced professionals; a good reminder for the rest of us to learn from those mistakes. The motion in State v. Stroup starts off well in its initial pages (no case law hallucinations), but is then followed by several pages of two other motions, which I don’t think the lawyer was planning to file, and which appear to have been AI-generated: It begins with the “Below is concise motion language you can drop into …” language quoted above.

Griffen Smith (Missoulian) reported on the story, and included the prosecutor’s motion to strike that filing, on the grounds that it violates a local rule (3(G)) requiring disclosure of the use of generative AI:

The document does not include a generative artificial intelligence disclosure as required. However, page 7 begins as follows: “Below is concise motion language you can drop into a ‘Motion to Admit Mental-Disease Evidence and for Related Instructions’ keyed to 45-6-204, 45-6-201, and 4614-102. Adjust headings/captions to your local practice.” Page 10 states “Below is a full motion you can paste into your pleading, then adjust names, dates, and styles to fit local practice.” These pages also include several apparent hyperlinks to “ppl-ai-file-upload.s3.amazonaws,” “ppl-ai-fileupload.s3.amazonaws+1,” and others. The document includes what appears to be an attempt at a second case caption on page 12. It is not plausible on its face that any source other than generative AI would have created such language for a filed version of a brief….

There’s more in that filing, but here’s one passage:

While generative AI can be a useful tool for some purposes and may have greater application in the future, when used improperly, and without meaningful review, it can ultimately damage both the perception and the reality of the profession. One assumes that Mr. Stroup has had, or will at some point have, an opportunity to review the filing made on his behalf. What impression could a review of pgs. 12-19 leave upon a defendant who struggles with paranoia and delusional thinking? While AI could theoretically one day become a replacement for portions of staff of experienced attorneys, it is readily apparent that this day has not yet arrived.

The Missoulan article includes this response:

In a Wednesday interview, Office of Public Defender Division Administrator Brian Smith told the Missoulian the AI-generated language was inadvertently included in an unrelated filing. And he criticized the county attorney’s office for filing a “four-page diatribe about the dangers of AI” instead of working with the defense to correct her mistake.
“That’s not helping the client or the case,” Smith said, “and all you are doing is trying to throw a professional colleague under the bus.”

As I mentioned, the lawyer involved seems quite experienced, and ran for the Montana Public Service Commission in 2020 (getting nearly 48% of the vote) and for the House of Representatives in Montana’s first district in 2022 (getting over 46% of the vote) and in 2024 (getting over 44%). “Его пример другим наука,” Pushkin wrote in Eugene Onegin—”May his example profit others,” in the Falen translation.

Thanks to Matthew Monforton for the pointer.

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Montana

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

Published

21 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Your guide to local sports events, plus what’s on TV

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Montana

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

Published

1 day ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

HELENA — You probably have goals and plans for 2026—the Montana Department of Agriculture does too.

“We’re really focusing on innovative agricultural practices,” Montana Department of Agriculture director Jillien Streit said.

It’s no secret that agriculture—farming and ranching—is not easy. There are long days, planning, monitoring crops and livestock, and other challenges beyond farmers’ and ranchers’ control.

(WATCH: Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026)

Montana Department of Agriculture focusing on innovation in 2026

“We have very low commodity prices across the board,” Streit said. “We still have very high input prices across the board, and we have really high prices when it comes to our equipment, and so, it’s a really tough year.”

But innovation, including new practices, partnerships and technology use, can help navigate some of those challenges.

“We can’t make more time and we can’t make more land, so we need to start putting together innovative practices that help us maximize what our time and land can do,” Streit said.

Practices range from using technology like autonomous tractors and virtual fencing—allowing rangers to contain and move cattle right from their phones—to regenerative farming and ranching.

“It is bringing cattle back into farming operations to be able to work with cover cropping practices to invigorate the soil for new soil health benefits,” Streit said.

The Montana Department of Agriculture is working to help producers learn, share, and collaborate on new ideas to work in their operations.

The department will share stories of practices that work from farms and ranches across the state. Also, within the next year or so, Streit said the department is hoping to roll out technology to help producers collaborate.

“(It’s) providing a communication platform where people can get together and really help each other out by utilizing each other’s assets,” she said.

While not easy, agriculture is still one of Montana’s largest industries, and Streit said innovating and sharing ideas across the state can keep it going long into the future.

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