Quisenberry v. Huntington Ingalls: Virginia Recognizes the Take-Home Asbestos Duty
For decades, the shipyard workers of Hampton Roads came home from the yards with asbestos dust on their coveralls. Their wives shook out the clothes and washed them; their children hugged them at the door. The industry has long faced liability to the workers themselves. But what about the family members who never set foot in the yard — who were exposed at home, one laundry day at a time, and who are now being diagnosed with mesothelioma decades later?
Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Virginia answered. In Quisenberry v. Huntington Ingalls Inc. (decided October 11, 2018), the Court held that an employer owes a duty of care to an employee's family members who foreseeably suffer exposure to asbestos carried home on the employee's work clothes.
The question, and how it reached the court
The case came to the Supreme Court of Virginia as a certified question from the federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia — a procedure federal courts use when a case turns on an unsettled question of state law. The question here was foundational: does Virginia law recognize any duty running from an employer to people it never employed, never invited onto its property, and may never have met — the members of a worker's household?
The shipyard's argument tracked the defense position in take-home cases nationwide: duty requires a relationship — employer/employee, business/invitee — and there is no relationship between a shipyard and a worker's family.
The stakes of that framing were enormous. Courts around the country have split on take-home liability for years, some recognizing the duty, others cutting it off at the property line. Had Virginia joined the no-duty camp, every household mesothelioma case in the Commonwealth — and Hampton Roads' shipbuilding history means there are many — would have ended at the pleadings, regardless of how foreseeable the exposure was or how careless the employer had been with the dust its own workers carried out the gate.
The holding: duty flows from conduct, not relationships
The Court rejected that framing. Under Virginia law, the duty of reasonable care arises from the defendant's own conduct: when your activities create a recognizable, foreseeable risk of harm to others, you owe those foreseeably endangered a duty of ordinary care. No "particular relationship" between the parties is required. Sending workers home day after day in asbestos-laden clothes creates exactly such a foreseeable risk to the people who live with them and handle the laundry.
If that principle sounds familiar to readers of this archive, it should: the Court built on RGR, LLC v. Settle (2014), where lumber stacked beside a rail crossing endangered passing motorists the landowner had no "relationship" with either. Quisenberry is the leading modern statement of Virginia's foreseeability-based general duty doctrine — and the take-home context is its most humane application.
Recognizing a duty does not decide any particular case. Plaintiffs must still prove what the employer knew about asbestos hazards and when, that the exposure was foreseeable, that reasonable care was not taken, and that the take-home exposure caused the disease. But those are questions of proof for juries — which is all these families were asking for.
What this means for injured people in Virginia
The practical consequences are significant:
- Spouses and children can now state a claim. Household members diagnosed with mesothelioma or other asbestos disease from take-home exposure are no longer turned away for want of a "duty" — the central legal barrier in these cases is gone.
- The proof is historical, and it is urgent. These cases are built from work histories, shipyard records, product identification, and the memories of aging coworkers and family members. Every year that passes costs evidence. Anyone diagnosed with mesothelioma who lived with an industrial worker — even in the 1960s or 1970s — should get legal help promptly, because the limitations clock runs from diagnosis. Details that seem mundane are the case: who did the laundry, where the work clothes were shaken out, whether the worker changed at the yard or at home, what the dust looked like on the car seats. Write those memories down now.
- The principle reaches beyond asbestos. A duty grounded in foreseeable risk created by the defendant's own conduct is not limited to one toxin. Quisenberry will be cited wherever a defendant's operations send danger home with its people.
Mesothelioma's decades-long latency means Virginia families will feel the consequences of mid-century industrial choices for years to come. This month, the Commonwealth's highest court made sure the law meets those families at the courthouse door instead of turning them away.
If you or a loved one has been hurt, call Posey Lebowitz at (202) 524-0123 or send us a message for a free consultation.
Part of our DMV case law archive, compiled in 2026 to reflect the archive of some of the most important decisions in injury law.