May 31, 2008
Having received a jury verdict of twelve million dollars, James Grumley has settled with Garlock Sealing Technologies for a confidential amount. Grumley was diagnosed with malignant pleura mesothelioma in 2006 after having worked for decades as a boiler mechanic at a Johnsonburg paper mill. For all those years he was exposed to asbestos on the boilers as well as the asbestos gaskets and rope packing.
“Jim Grumley’s cancer was entirely preventable. Asbestos was just too
profitable for Garlock. The worst thing about it is that instead of
promptly eliminating asbestos from their gaskets and packing once they knew
what asbestos could do, Garlock chose to spend decades devising ways to
cover up the cancers its asbestos products cause,” said
attorney John Langdoc.
“It breaks my heart because he did everything right,” said his son Bob.
“He raised us, he educated us, he labored for us. He did everything right
and he shouldn’t have to go through what he’s going through. No man, no
person should have to go through what’s facing him.”
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Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, lawsuits, verdict | Tagged: asbestos boiler insulation, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, mesothelioma lawsuit, mesothelioma verdict | 
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Posted by Dave Austin
May 30, 2008
In Northern Ireland, Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has introduced a mesothelioma compensation bill to the Parliament of Northern Ireland. Parliament is also referred to as “Stormont” because of its location in the Belfast area.
Her bill will extend payment to all sufferers even if they do not have an occupational or causal link. That also means that spouses who were exposed to asbestos by washing work clothes or children who may have played with the work clothes will benefit as will those who lived near the factories that used asbestos.
“I will give early access to a lump sum payable within weeks of diagnosis,” she said.
“This means sufferers will get compensation while they can still benefit from it during the final months of their lives.”
Mesiothelioma is a signal of asbestos exposure and can follow exposure by upwards of 25 years. It attacks the mesothelium, the protective lining of many of the body’s internal organs and leaves its victim with a shortened life expectancy - on average up to a year.
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Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, legislation | Tagged: 2nd hand exposure, Asbestos, asbestos exposure, Mesothelioma, Mesothelioma Lawyer, mesothelium, Northern Ireland, Parliament | 
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Posted by Dave Austin
May 29, 2008
The 4th District Court of Appeal in Florida has given new life to thousands of asbestos related lawsuits. What the court did invalidates the retroactivity feature of the 2005 law which would limit the number of people eligible to sue. Industry lawyers said that this ruling was likely to be appealed to the Florida Supreme Court partly because the 3rd District Court of Appeal had ruled that the retroactivity is valid.
Judge Gary Farmer wrote for the unanimous court that the Florida Asbestos and Silica Compensation Fairness Act “may not constitutionally be applied to eliminate the existing vested rights in the lawsuits pending when the act became effective” July 1, 2005. Judges W. Matthew Stevenson and Carole Taylor concurred.
Attorney Joel Perwin who helped handle the 4th District appealfor the plaintiffs has said that this means that there thousands of cases that were in the pipeline before the law was passed that now have new life. He said that there are limits to legislative power and that you don’t take away existing rights when you pass new laws.
The 2005 law set impairment standards for plaintiffs. People with nonmalignant asbestosis must have lost at least 20 percent of their breathing capacity to sue, and those with lung cancer would have to have asbestosis and diminished breathing capacity to discount the effects of smoking.
Attorney John Pelzer, who handled the appeal for the industry, said he was disappointed by the ruling.
The law was designed to “put people who were sick at the head of the line” for compensation from a limited fund ahead of people who were exposed to asbestos but not yet sick, said Pelzer, a partner at Ruden McCloskey Smith Schuster & Russell in Fort Lauderdale.
The 4th DCA ruling is an attempt “to undo that effort and put us back to what I call the Dark Ages of asbestos litigation where people who aren’t really sick are cutting in the line ahead of people who are sick,” he said.
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Asbestos, Court, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, lawsuits | Tagged: 3rd district court of appeal, 4th district court of appeal, Asbestos, asbestos lawsuit, Asbestosis, Florida Asbestos and Silica Compensation Fairness Act, Florida District Appeals Court, Mesothelioma | 
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Posted by Dave Austin
May 24, 2008
A woman in Galveston has filed suit against several companies claiming that her Mesothelioma was caused by asbestos particles carried into her home on her father’s clothing when he came in from work. Companies named in the suit include Marathon Petroleum Company, BASF, Todd Shipyard and Monsanto.
The suit contends Chason “was exposed to large quantities of asbestos from the products and/or machinery manufactured, sold, designed, supplied, distributed, mined, milled relabeled, resold, processed, applied, or installed by the above-named Defendants.”
It also alleges that the defendants knew of the dangers from asbestos exposure but failed to provide any warning or protection to its employees including her father. Each day when he came home from work asbestos particles from his clothing became airborne. Only years later would she be diagnosed with mesothelioma, a disease that only shows up 30 to 50 years after asbestos exposure.
No Comments » | Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, lawsuits | Tagged: airborn asbestos, asbestos exposure, asbestos lawsuit, employee safety, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma | Permalink
Posted by Dave Austin
May 23, 2008
The Los Angeles Times reported May 2 about a community in El Dorado Hills, Calif., that is being investigated by the EPA for high asbestos levels.
Inspectors donned air filters and protective gear while running, biking and playing baseball and other sports in areas of the town to monitor asbestos levels. The paper reported that initial EPA assessments were worst along a creek-side trail in El Dorado Hills Community Park, where asbestos levels were 22-43 times higher than ambient air levels when stirred up by the common recreational activities tested.
The newspaper also reported that there had already been a clean-up at the high school and the running track was given a new all weather surface. The community has an affluent popuulation and its seems that some citizens don’t care about the potential danger in asbestos exposure.
One resident thinks that most people are more concerned about property values than health issues as she told of how much dust was kicked up from cheer-leading that her daughter did. Other residents were quoted as saying that this whole thing was being blown way out of proportion, that the the government should stay out of this and there is always risk in life no matter what we do.
Well, what about the children? The damage that asbestos can do takes a long time to show up so the children being exposed now are not going to see problems until much later in life. How much are parents really willing to risk in their childrens’ names so that they are not being inconvenienced??
1 Comment | Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma | Tagged: Pleural mesothelioma, EPA, Lung Cancer, "El Dorado Hills", "California asbestos", children exposed to asbestos | Permalink
Posted by Dave Austin
May 20, 2008
Oklahoma citizens who have mesothelioma have a hard road ahead of them if they want to file a lawsuit against corporations where they worked and were exposed to asbestos.
Many in Oklahoma and other states have enjoyed the prosperity that the oil industry has brought to their state. The other side of that coin is that for years employees and their families have been exposed to asbestos, a material heavily used because of its fire retardant quality. Many have become victims of mesothelioma, a lung cancer for which there is no cure. Their families were also exposed because the asbestos particles were carried home on clothing and released into the air at home.
Unfortunately for these victims, Oklahoma law makes it very difficult to file suit about their exposure.
Nearly one-fifth of Oklahoma’s economy is dependent upon the production of petroleum. Hundreds of thousands of workers and their families were placed at risk for malignant melanoma in Oklahoma because of their exposure to asbestos. To protect the oil industry, Oklahoma government officials have chosen to pass laws that work against mesothelioma settlements and claims to which workers are entitled.
According to Oklahoma law, mesothelioma victims are only entitled to file a lawsuit if their cancer is diagnosed within two years of its development, or within two years of the time it should have been diagnosed. There are two major problems with this. First, mesothelioma side effects can take decades to develop; people do not develop it two years after exposure. Furthermore, diagnosing mesothelioma cancer can be very difficult, because mesothelioma symptoms are vague and often lead doctors to diagnosis congestive heart failure, emphysema, or other lung problems instead.
So it would appear that Oklahoma mesothelioma lawsuits seem to be on the side of the corporations, not innocent victims of this horrible disease who do not receive justice. If possible, some Mesothelioma law firms even would take their cases out of state where the process can be quicker and the settlement better. Interestingly, no Oklahoma mesothelioma cases have recently been heard in Federal District Couts.
No Comments » | Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, lawsuits, legislation | Tagged: "asbestos health dangers", "mesothelioma cancer", "Oklahoma mesothelioma", Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma | Permalink
Posted by Dave Austin
May 13, 2008
Last week the Bureau of Land Management closed about half the Clear Creek Management Area in the Diablo Range on Friday. The reason was that the Environmental Protection Agency issued a report saying asbestos in the area posed a serious cancer risk to those who work, hike, camp, hunt, collect gems and ride dirt bikes.
“Frankly, we were surprised at how high the levels of asbestos are at Clear Creek,” said Jere Johnson, a Superfund project manager for the EPA who worked on the study. “What we found is that there is a lot of asbestos in the soil, and when you disturb the soil it poses a health risk.”
Clear Creek has the largest deposits in the United States because of the unique geological combination of volcanic rock and faults. Arnold Den, a science advisor for the EPA, said that a 2005 UC Davis study found that people living near naturally occurring asbestos had a significantly higher cancer rate than those who don’t.
Dirt bikers are not happy at all saying that the type of asbestos there is not toxic and are upset about being denied access to public land.
“The recreation community is in a state of shock,” said Don Amador, a frequent visitor to Clear Creek and Western representative for the Blue Ribbon Coalition, an off-road advocacy group.
“It’s unprecedented, as far as public land issues go. We’re going to want to fight it, either administratively or in court.”
“The bottom line is, asbestos is a very potent carcinogen,” he said. “We don’t want to wait around and count the bodies. We’d rather prevent the bodies in the first place.”
Arnold Den says that the government is taking no chances because the danger from asbestos particles can cause cancer of the lungs and throat, called mesothelioma, and scarring of the lungs that interferes with breathing.
No Comments » | Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma | Tagged: Asbestos, Lung Cancer, Mesothelioma, off roading | Permalink
Posted by Dave Austin
May 10, 2008
The dangers of inhaling asbestos or being exposed to other forms of asbestos have been known for many years. However, only in the last couple of decades has the public become more aware of the danger, perhaps because only now is the effect being felt from exposures many years ago.
According to the American Cancer Society, Mesothelioma can be caused by asbestos and it can take twenty to fifty years to show up after first exposure. Not only that but the risk is lifetime and does not reduce over time.
ASBESTOS IN CHILDREN’S TOYS??
Lawsuits have been filed in California against Planet Toys, Inc. and CBS Broadcasting System, Inc. Planet Toys makes a series of kits modeled after the popular CBS program CSI and CBS licenses the kits. The suits allege that fingerprint powder in the kits contained large quantities of asbestos.
“This should be a no-brainer,” says Victoria Ni, the lead Public Justice attorney in both cases. “The facts are that even small quantities of asbestos are hazardous when inhaled, that the fingerprinting powder has been found to contain asbestos, and that this powder has been marketed and sold to thousands of children who are told to spread it around and blow off the excess. It’s a shame that we’ve had to resort to litigation to force these companies to do what they should have done in the first place to protect the American public.”
WHO DA THUNK??
No Comments » | Asbestos, Mesothelioma, lawsuits | Tagged: Asbestos, CBS, childrens toys, lawsuits, Mesothelioma, Planet Toys | Permalink
Posted by Dave Austin
