BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A federal appeals court has overturned a judge’s finding that BNSF Railway contributed to the deaths of two people in a Montana mining town where thousands have been sickened by asbestos exposure.
Following a civil trial, a jury in 2024 awarded $4 million each to the estates of the two people who died in 2020. Their families blamed the railroad for allowing asbestos-contaminated mining material to accumulate in a rail yard in downtown Libby, Montana.
But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in an opinion issued Tuesday sided with BNSF, which argued it was required under law to accept the vermiculite material for shipment and had been told it was safe. BNSF is considered a “common carrier” under federal law because its services are offered to the general public, a status that shields it from some legal liabilities.
“The dangerous condition here — accumulated asbestos dust — arose solely from BNSF’s operation as a common carrier executing its federally mandated duty to transport vermiculite,” Judge Morgan Christen wrote in Tuesday’s opinion. He added that BNSF was “protected from strict liability by the common carrier exception.”
The case in Helena, Montana, 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 for its alleged role in asbestos exposure that health officials say has killed several hundred people and sickened thousands.
U.S. District Judge Brian Morris had instructed the Helena jury that it could find the railroad negligent based on its actions in the Libby Railyard. The jury did not find that BNSF acted intentionally or with indifference, so no punitive damages were awarded.
The vermiculite mined in Libby has high concentrations of naturally occurring asbestos. It was used in insulation and for other commercial purposes in homes and businesses across the nation.
After being extracted from a mountaintop outside town, the material was loaded onto rail cars that sometimes spilled the contents 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.
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Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. acquired BNSF in 2010, two decades after the vermiculite mine near Libby shut down and stopped shipping the contaminated mineral.
Looming over the proceedings is W.R. Grace & Co., a chemical company that operated the mountaintop vermiculite mine 7 miles (11 kilometers) outside of Libby until the mine closed in 1990. The Maryland-based company played a central role in Libby’s tragedy and paid significant settlements to victims, but avoided greater liability after declaring bankruptcy.
Attorneys for BNSF said the railway company was told repeatedly by W.R. Grace representatives that the product it was shipping through Libby was safe.
Federal prosecutors in 2005 indicted W.R. Grace and executives from the company on criminal charges over the contamination. 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.
For some young children in Columbus, Ohio, reading assessments don’t start in the kindergarten classroom — they happen first in the doctor’s office.
With concerns rising about lagging childhood literacy rates across the country, Nationwide Children’s Hospital has begun screening children’s literacy skills starting at age 3 during pediatrician visits. The idea is to catch reading struggles early on and guide parents on how to help their kids.
“They are all doing developmental screenings, they’re all talking to parents repeatedly,” said Sara Bode, the hospital’s medical director of school-based health. “So this is an opportunity.”
The pediatric hospital chose clinics to provide the literacy screenings largely based on their proximity to schools with lower performance scores on kindergarten readiness assessments. Across Columbus City Schools, more than 63% of kindergarteners were behind on language and literacy skills during the 2024-2025 school year, according to state kindergarten readiness assessment, or KRA, data.
Concerns about childhood literacy extend far beyond Columbus. Nationally, the percentage of fourth graders considered proficient in reading sits just above 30%, according to the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card. Reading proficiency has dipped 4 percentage points since 2019 as schools have struggled to make up for pandemic learning losses.
Literacy screenings are not typically conducted in medical settings, but several prominent pediatric care centers, including Boston Children’s Hospital, promote early literacy resources to families in recognition of reading’s importance for a child’s development.
Kids who enter kindergarten with lower reading ability often struggle to catch up in later grades. Almost three-fourths of kindergarteners who test in the bottom 20% of students for readiness exams remain in the bottom 20% of their class by fifth grade, according to The Children’s Reading Foundation, a nonprofit organization.
Juri Sleet, 4, holds a pair of books after completing a literacy screening at Linden Primary Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jessica Phelps)
Carneshia Edwards, Lead Kindergarten readiness coordinator at Nationwide Children’s health at Nationwide Children’s hospital photographed at Linden Primary Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jessica Phelps)
Juri Sleet, 4, works with Crystal Webb, a kindergarten readiness coordinator at Linden Primary Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jessica Phelps)
Dr. Sara Bode is the Medical Director of Children’s Health at Nationwide Children’s hospital photographed at Linden Primary Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jessica Phelps)
Juri Sleet, 4, picks up a book from a kit given to families at Linden Primary Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, while Crystal Webb, a kindergarten readiness coordinator talks with Sleet’s grandmother, Quintina Davis, about the literacy screening, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jessica Phelps)
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Juri Sleet, 4, holds a pair of books after completing a literacy screening at Linden Primary Care Center at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Jessica Phelps)
Development screenings typically focus on other milestones
Physicians’ assessments of childhood development have often focused more on other milestones, such as walking or talking on time. But a child could ace a standard pediatric screening and still be behind in other areas needed to be ready for kindergarten, Bode said.
To address that dilemma, the pediatric hospital implemented literacy screenings in about half of its 13 clinics, assigning a literacy coordinator to each. The program launched in 2022 and has since conducted more than 2,400 screenings. Many of the children come from high-needs populations, as Nationwide serves families that are uninsured or on Medicaid.
Screeners aren’t meant to diagnose learning disabilities like dyslexia, but rather identify areas where kids could use additional support.
Having support outside the education system to flag early reading difficulties is a step in the right direction, but choosing the right screening tool is key, said Devin Kearns, an early literacy professor at North Carolina State University.
Coordinators at Nationwide use a tool that assesses kids as they read through a book during primary care visits — either in English or Spanish. It took some practice to refine the timing — avoiding moments after vaccinations when children were upset, for example — but the reading assessments take only about 10 minutes.
After a child completes a screening, the coordinator can create a personalized literacy plan that highlights the areas that need more practice.
The visit is also an opportunity to model activities that parents can do at home with their kids, such as reading a book aloud, said Carneshia Edwards, who leads the hospital’s kindergarten readiness team.
“When we’re doing the screenings, families are kind of concerned that their kids don’t know certain things and it’s not necessarily about that piece of it,” Edwards said. “It’s just more so exposing them more than anything.”
Giving families tools to improve reading at home
Before Juri Sleet completed her literacy screening at age 3, her grandmother, Quintina Davis, worried Juri didn’t have enough opportunities for early learning. But meeting with the literacy coordinator at her clinic opened Davis’ eyes to all the activities she could do at home with Juri.
“She didn’t know as much, but our coordinator was very patient with her,” Davis said.
After each screening, coordinators put together literacy kits, a medley of tools and activities for at-home practice. Those materials are also influenced by Columbus City Schools teachers’ feedback on what students need help with when they enter kindergarten.
The kits’ contents largely depend on donations the program receives. There are often items such as dry-erase boards for writing letters and books to practice reading. But the kits can also have safety scissors or pencils with rubbery grippers to improve motor skills.
“Parents are the first teachers, so we really try to encourage them to sit down with their child and just kind of work with them before going into kindergarten,” Edwards said.
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Coordinators stay in touch with the families they met with in the clinic, sometimes referring children to early education programs such as the federally-funded preschool program Head Start or the SPARK program, which does educational home visits.
Then, when a child returns to the clinic a year later, the coordinator meets with them again. For Juri, now 4, the follow-up visit put into perspective how much she had progressed in a year, her grandmother said.
Over the course of a year, Juri had made strides in recognizing letters, sounds and sight words. Juri also enrolled in preschool at a local YMCA with the help of her literacy coordinator, Davis said. She’s been doing “awesome” there, Davis said, and she can’t wait to watch her grow even more.
“The goal is to make sure by the time she starts kindergarten, that she’s absolutely ready without having a lot of challenges,” Davis said. “So right now, I think she is heading towards that way.”
Patrick Aftoora-Orsagos in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Heidi Firkus was 25 when she was fatally shot at home in St. Paul’s Hamline-Midway neighborhood. The case went unresolved for more than a decade.
Nicholas Firkus, then 27, told police that an intruder burst in and he and the unknown man struggled over Firkus’ shotgun. He said the gun went off twice, striking Heidi in the back and wounding Nicholas in the thigh. Heidi died at the scene.
In 2021, Nicholas Firkus was charged and a jury found him guilty of first-degree premeditated murder in 2023.
Long wait for court’s decision
Nicholas Firkus, who turned 43 on Wednesday, has maintained there was an intruder in their home. At his sentencing in 2023 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, he said he “will maintain until my dying breath my innocence of this crime.”
In April 2024, as Firkus appealed his conviction, the Minnesota Supreme Court’s justices heard oral arguments from Firkus’ attorney and a prosecutor from the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office.
In July 2024, the court issued an order that said, “to fully inform our consideration of this case, supplemental briefing and reargument is needed.” They asked a series of questions and requested both sides submit briefs with their legal arguments.
Such evidence is described by the Minnesota Judicial Branch as “facts or testimony not based on actual personal knowledge or observation, by which other non-substantiated facts can be reasonably inferred.”
For example, a person seen running away from a shooting while holding a gun is circumstantial evidence, while direct evidence could be an eyewitness testifying they saw the suspect shoot the victim.
Circumstantial evidence also includes DNA evidence on a gun: While it can link a person to a murder weapon, it doesn’t directly prove they used the gun to shoot someone.
In Minnesota, jurors are instructed to treat direct and circumstantial evidence the same, and that the law doesn’t prefer one form of evidence over the other.
When a conviction is based on circumstantial evidence and there’s an appeal, appellate courts are to use a two-step analysis, according to the Minnesota Court of Appeals standards of review.
“The first step is to identify the circumstances proved,” the standards of review says. “… We consider only those circumstances that are consistent with the verdict. This is because the jury is in the best position to evaluate the credibility of the evidence.”
“The second step is to determine whether the circumstances proved are consistent with guilt and inconsistent with any rational hypothesis except that of guilt,” the standards continue. “We review the circumstantial evidence not as isolated facts, but as a whole.”
Firkus’ attorney, Robert Richman, noted in a legal briefing that the state Supreme Court “has repeatedly refused to abandon this stricter scrutiny” of circumstantial evidence, including in their 2024 reversal of a man’s conviction for aiding and abetting murder.
The Minnesota Board of Public Defense and the Minnesota Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in their brief urged the court to “maintain its well-established circumstantial evidence standard of review.”
But the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office, Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and Minnesota County Attorneys Association asked the state Supreme Court to change the review standard for circumstantial evidence.
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Tommy Schaefer was sentenced to 18 years in prison for the 2014 murder of Sheila von Wiese-Mack, the mother of Heather Mack, during a luxury vacation in a case also known as the Bali “suitcase murder.”
Schafer was deported back to the United States from Bali International Airport on Tuesday evening, after serving his sentence and receiving a number of remissions for good behavior, said Felucia Sengky Ratna, head of the Bali Regional Office of the Directorate General of Immigration, in a statement.
The badly battered body of the 62-year-old von Wiese-Mack, a wealthy Chicago socialite, was found inside the trunk of a taxi parked at the upscale St. Regis Bali Resort in August 2014.
Heather Mack, who was almost 19 and a few weeks pregnant at the time of the killing, and her then-21-year-old boyfriend, Schaefer, were arrested on the island a day after the body was found.
FILE – Tommy Schaefer of Chicago, Ill., who alongwith his girlfriend Heather Mack is accused of murdering Mack’s mother Sheila von Wiese-Mack whose body was later found in a suitcase, arrives for his trial hearing at the district court in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia on Jan. 21, 2015. (AP Photo/Firdia Lisnawati, File)
Mack served seven years of a 10-year prison sentence in Bali for helping to kill her mother and was deported in October 2021.
She was also sentenced to 26 years in prison in Chicago in January 2024, after she pleaded guilty to helping kill her mother and stuffing the body in a suitcase during their vacation.
