Chevron Unit Loses Appeal of $12 Million Benzene Exposure Award

Two brothers’ families may keep a $12 million judgment against Union Oil Co. of California, now owned by Chevron Corp., because they supplied adequate proof that the company’s benzene-containing solvent caused the mens’ leukemia, a California appeals court ruled.

But the trial court was correct when it asked the families to accept a reduction from the original verdict of about $21 million because the jury improperly took the workers’ past relationships with family members into account, the California Court of Appeal, First District, said Tuesday. Only the loss of those relationships in the future should have factored into the ...