An article published last week in The Cameron Herald discusses how a Milam County man’s case led to a court ruling allowing second suits.
Henry Pustejovsky died in 1995 just about a year after he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer that afflicts the lining of the thoracic cavity (the mesothelium). The mesothelium is a membrane that lines body cavities such as the pleura(lungs) and the pericardium(heart).
His family brought suit. Henry had worked at ALCOA potlines in Rockdale for about 25 years. In 1982 he was diagnosed with asbestosis, a scarring of the lungs caused by inhaling asbestos fibers. In 1994 Henry was diagnosed with mesothlioma and passed away a year later.
Henry’s family pursued a suit in his name and, in 2001, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that people like him, who were diagnosed with the workplace disease asbestosis and reached some sort of settlement for it, may make a second claim for asbestos-related cancers like mesothelioma.
This is an important ruling for Texas workers. Asbestosis and mesothelioma are two different diseases and have different latencies. Those who have been diagnosed with asbestosis may never be diagnosed with mesothelioma and, if they are, it may be decades later. As in Henry’s case, that diagnosis may be too late for anything but palliative care.
