🚨Philadelphia jury delivers major win for ExxonMobil in gasoline-leukemia case A Philadelphia jury has rejected claims that gasoline and other automotive products caused a man’s leukemia, handing ExxonMobil a clear victory that stands in sharp contrast to a recent $725 million verdict against the company in a similar case that the Superior Court recently upheld on procedural grounds. Key points from the Oct. 13 verdict in the Leon and Ruth Mazza lawsuit: ◾️Jurors found ExxonMobil’s benzene-containing gasoline was not defectively designed. ◾️The jury concluded the company did not intentionally conceal the dangers of benzene, even while finding the gasoline lacked an adequate benzene warning. ◾️Plaintiffs (represented by the same Locks Law Firm as in the earlier Gill case) argued there is no safe level of benzene exposure and pointed to the International Agency for Research on Cancer’s reclassification of gasoline as carcinogenic to humans; the jury was not persuaded that these products caused Mazza’s leukemia. ◾️Mazza’s alleged exposures came from work at a Wyndmoor Exxon station, a body shop, landscaping businesses (1970–2020), plus personal use of benzene-containing products in his drag-racing hobby; he was diagnosed in 2022. ◾️The result undercuts the narrative from the Gill case, where a juror later blogged about the “best feeling ever” of seeing Exxon lawyers look like they “were going to puke,” and business groups had warned that such nuclear verdicts raise costs for everyone. This defense win arrives just days after the Superior Court upheld the massive Gill judgment (largely on procedural grounds rather than a deep dive into the disputed science) and amid broader pushback against IARC-driven claims, including federal efforts to limit the agency’s influence. For ExxonMobil and the industry, it shows that not every benzene-exposure lawsuit ends in a blockbuster plaintiff verdict. Juries can and do reject the “gasoline causes cancer” theory when the evidence doesn’t support it. [Link to full story in the next post.]