In the 2000 California case of Chavers v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., in which a retired Navy seaman recieved $4.6 million in damages, it's worth noting that the jury also found the defendant, a manufacturer of asbestos products, not only guilty of negligence but of fraud as well. Based on the evidence, the jury concluded that Owens-Illinois had been involved in a conspiracy with other asbestos manufacturers to conceal facts regarding the danger of the material and had willfully "misrepresented the true nature of the hazards the products posed to unsuspecting workers." The jury also determined that Owens-Illinois had "committed malice and oppression in its conduct".
In a more recent case, a Los Angeles court awarded $10 million to an 82-year-old man who had contracted mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure resulting from his work as a machinist during the 1940s. In addition, the jury found that the defendant corporation was "guilty of malice, fraud, and oppression".
When a corporation willfully and purposefully injures someone, the victim's only recourse is litigation.
The two court cases outlined above are examples of mesothelioma litigation; court actions in which the victim seeks compensation for his or her expenses, loss of income and pain and suffering. In addition, juries often add punitive damages. These are payments above and beyond the victim's award for economic and non-economic losses, designed to punish corporate malfeasance; in essence, such damages are intended to send a message to the corporate world that such actions will not be tolerated.
A Short History of Mesothelioma Litigation
Texas lawyer Ward Stephenson was the first to litigate an asbestos product lawsuit. This action, filed in December of 1966 in Beaumont Texas, named the plaintiff as Claude Tomplait, a former asbestos worker from Lake Charles, Louisiana. There were eleven named defendants, which included Johns-Manville and Owens-Corning, among others.
Tomplait had been diagnosed with what his doctor called "pulmonary dust disease," which had all the symptoms of asbestosis. The complaint's allegation stated that the defendants had either known or had an obligation to be aware of health hazards of asbestos; their liability was based on a failure to warn Tomplait of these hazards. (Today, "failure to warn" is a primary element in asbestos lawsuits).
Of the eleven defendants, five were ultimately dropped from the suit; the jury found in favor of a sixth defendant. The other five defendants however agreed to an out-of-court settlement. In Stephenson's opinion, this indicated that the asbestos industry had legal vulnerability.
In October of 1969, a second suit was filed against many of the same defendants by one of Tomplait's fellow workers, Clarence Borel, who was suffering from advanced mesothelioma, a rare form of asbestos cancer, at the time. He died eight months later shortly after giving his deposition (written testimony). Four of the defendants, including Owens-Corning, settled with Borel's estate before the trial began in September of 1970. During that trial, the accident prevention manager for Johns-Manville - whose wife, ironically would later die of malignant mesothelioma - testified that he had never heard of asbestos toxicity prior to 1964, when Dr. Irving Selikoff presented a paper on the subject to the New York Academy of Sciences; therefore, the corporation could not be held liable for injuries related to asbestos exposure occurring prior to that time.
The Cover-up Exposed
Although the jury found in favor of the plaintiff in Borel v. Fiberboard Paper Products Corporation et. al., that particular defense - claiming ignorance prior to 1964 - was quite successful against the "failure to warn" argument over the next few years. Then, in the spring of 1977, New Jersey lawyer Karl Asch made a discovery that would reveal corporate conspiracy and malfeasance beyond any doubt.
While representing former employees of Raybestos-Manhattan against their former employer, Asch found a passage in the company's annual report suggesting that forty years earlier, the company had commissioned a prominent insurance company to survey its factories and make recommendations on employee health and injury hazards.
Asch had the court issue a subpoena to the company's CEO, who was the son of the company's founder, Sumner Simpson. William Simpson acknowledged that his company had commissioned a laboratory to study the harmful effects of asbestos. The findings of this study, along with correspondence with the head of Johns-Manville regarding the subject, were discovered in an office closet where they had been stored since the late 1940s.
These documents came to be known as the Sumner Simpson Papers. They clearly showed that the asbestos industry had deliberately conspired to suppress and in many cases falsify information related to the dangers of asbestos.
The result was an explosion of mesothelioma lawsuits that continues to the present day.
The Current State of Mesothelioma Litigation
Until the 1980's, most people who served in the three branches of U.S. government came from the legal profession, the military, or had background in statecraft. Today, a large number of Congressional seats as well as the offices of the Executive Branch are held by former corporate CEOs, board members and other businesspeople. This does not bode well for the future of mesothelioma litigation; over the past several years, there have been numerous legislative attacks on the rights of people to sue large corporations.
On the other hand, recent years have seen the beginnings of a backlash against this trend: Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter's "FAIR Act," which would have ended the right of asbestos victims to sue by creating an under-funded 'trust fund', failed to pass in 2006.
Additionally, mesothelioma has a solid, thirty-year body of case law and precedent from which mesothelioma lawyers have been able to draw on in order to successfully argue their clients' cases. While no attorney can guarantee you a multi-million dollar mesothelioma settlement, you should know that history and the evidence are on your side. Do your due diligence: choose a lawyer who has knowledge and experience in mesothelioma litigation, and make sure you have a strong case with credible evidence, and you will receive justice.
In a more recent case, a Los Angeles court awarded $10 million to an 82-year-old man who had contracted mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure resulting from his work as a machinist during the 1940s. In addition, the jury found that the defendant corporation was "guilty of malice, fraud, and oppression".
When a corporation willfully and purposefully injures someone, the victim's only recourse is litigation.
The two court cases outlined above are examples of mesothelioma litigation; court actions in which the victim seeks compensation for his or her expenses, loss of income and pain and suffering. In addition, juries often add punitive damages. These are payments above and beyond the victim's award for economic and non-economic losses, designed to punish corporate malfeasance; in essence, such damages are intended to send a message to the corporate world that such actions will not be tolerated.
A Short History of Mesothelioma Litigation
Texas lawyer Ward Stephenson was the first to litigate an asbestos product lawsuit. This action, filed in December of 1966 in Beaumont Texas, named the plaintiff as Claude Tomplait, a former asbestos worker from Lake Charles, Louisiana. There were eleven named defendants, which included Johns-Manville and Owens-Corning, among others.
Tomplait had been diagnosed with what his doctor called "pulmonary dust disease," which had all the symptoms of asbestosis. The complaint's allegation stated that the defendants had either known or had an obligation to be aware of health hazards of asbestos; their liability was based on a failure to warn Tomplait of these hazards. (Today, "failure to warn" is a primary element in asbestos lawsuits).
Of the eleven defendants, five were ultimately dropped from the suit; the jury found in favor of a sixth defendant. The other five defendants however agreed to an out-of-court settlement. In Stephenson's opinion, this indicated that the asbestos industry had legal vulnerability.
In October of 1969, a second suit was filed against many of the same defendants by one of Tomplait's fellow workers, Clarence Borel, who was suffering from advanced mesothelioma, a rare form of asbestos cancer, at the time. He died eight months later shortly after giving his deposition (written testimony). Four of the defendants, including Owens-Corning, settled with Borel's estate before the trial began in September of 1970. During that trial, the accident prevention manager for Johns-Manville - whose wife, ironically would later die of malignant mesothelioma - testified that he had never heard of asbestos toxicity prior to 1964, when Dr. Irving Selikoff presented a paper on the subject to the New York Academy of Sciences; therefore, the corporation could not be held liable for injuries related to asbestos exposure occurring prior to that time.
The Cover-up Exposed
Although the jury found in favor of the plaintiff in Borel v. Fiberboard Paper Products Corporation et. al., that particular defense - claiming ignorance prior to 1964 - was quite successful against the "failure to warn" argument over the next few years. Then, in the spring of 1977, New Jersey lawyer Karl Asch made a discovery that would reveal corporate conspiracy and malfeasance beyond any doubt.
While representing former employees of Raybestos-Manhattan against their former employer, Asch found a passage in the company's annual report suggesting that forty years earlier, the company had commissioned a prominent insurance company to survey its factories and make recommendations on employee health and injury hazards.
Asch had the court issue a subpoena to the company's CEO, who was the son of the company's founder, Sumner Simpson. William Simpson acknowledged that his company had commissioned a laboratory to study the harmful effects of asbestos. The findings of this study, along with correspondence with the head of Johns-Manville regarding the subject, were discovered in an office closet where they had been stored since the late 1940s.
These documents came to be known as the Sumner Simpson Papers. They clearly showed that the asbestos industry had deliberately conspired to suppress and in many cases falsify information related to the dangers of asbestos.
The result was an explosion of mesothelioma lawsuits that continues to the present day.
The Current State of Mesothelioma Litigation
Until the 1980's, most people who served in the three branches of U.S. government came from the legal profession, the military, or had background in statecraft. Today, a large number of Congressional seats as well as the offices of the Executive Branch are held by former corporate CEOs, board members and other businesspeople. This does not bode well for the future of mesothelioma litigation; over the past several years, there have been numerous legislative attacks on the rights of people to sue large corporations.
On the other hand, recent years have seen the beginnings of a backlash against this trend: Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter's "FAIR Act," which would have ended the right of asbestos victims to sue by creating an under-funded 'trust fund', failed to pass in 2006.
Additionally, mesothelioma has a solid, thirty-year body of case law and precedent from which mesothelioma lawyers have been able to draw on in order to successfully argue their clients' cases. While no attorney can guarantee you a multi-million dollar mesothelioma settlement, you should know that history and the evidence are on your side. Do your due diligence: choose a lawyer who has knowledge and experience in mesothelioma litigation, and make sure you have a strong case with credible evidence, and you will receive justice.
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