North Carolina Parties Disagree on What Causal Agent is At Issue

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. -- Parties remaining in a North Carolina benzene case have exchanged briefing on a number of issues, including expert admissibility and sufficiency of the claims. Stromberg, et al. v. Ashland Inc., et al., No. 07-332 (M.D. N.C.).

In a round of Jan. 23 reply briefs filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, Ashland Inc. defended its attack on the plaintiffs' experts, saying in part that the plaintiffs wrongfully characterize the causal agent in this case as benzene when it is in fact toluene.

The plaintiffs had defended its experts' methodologies in a …