A panel of federal judges on Tuesday appeared skeptical of arguments from lawyers for two deceased plaintiffs that railroad giant BNSF Railway is liable for past asbestos contamination at its rail yard in Libby.

BNSF appealed the case to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after a federal jury in Helena in 2024 found the company legally responsible for asbestos toxicity at its rail yard that likely caused the deaths of two plaintiffs, Thomas Wells and Joyce Walder. Both plaintiffs lived adjacent to the site decades ago and died of mesothelioma — a lung cancer often linked to asbestos exposure — in 2020.

The jury awarded each plaintiffs’ estates $4 million in compensatory damages, but did not find that BNSF had knowingly acted with negligence by failing to clean up its rail yard. BNSF

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