Asbestos Mesotheliomia Lawsuits Litigation

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ASBESTOS & MESOTHELIOMA GUIDE: Asbestos & Mesothelioma, ASBESTOS, Asbestosis, Asbestos Cancer, Asbestos Exposure, Asbestos Materials, Asbestos Safety, Lawsuits & Litigation, MESOTHELIOMA, Peritoneal Mesothelioma, Pleural Mesothelioma, Mesothelioma Risk, Mesothelioma Symptoms, Mesothelioma Treatment, AHERA, ASHAA, NESHAP

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Asbestos & Mesothelioma Lawsuits & Litigation

The first asbestos products lawsuit was filed on December 10, 1966, in Beaumont, Texas, by attorney Ward Stephenson on behalf of his client, Claude Tomplait. Mr. Tomplait had been diagnosed with asbestosis in July of that year. The defendants were eleven manufacturers of asbestos-containing insulation products, including Johns-Manville, Fibreboard and Owens Corning Fiberglas.

The above mentioned case by attorney Ward Stephenson proceeded to trial on May 12, 1969 and a week later the verdict was returned in favor of defendants.

But Stephenson was not deterred by this initial loss. In October 1969, he filed a case for one of Mr. Tomplait's co-workers, a man named Clarence Borel. Again, he named numerous asbestos manufacturers. However, this time the result was different. The jury returned a verdict for Mr. Borel in the amount of $79,436.24. The verdict was appealed and on September 7, 1973, Ward Stephenson died. However, four days later, the Fifth Circuit Court upheld the award.

The legal battle on behalf of asbestos victims shifted to other parts of the United States. Starting in late 1973, cases were filed in many other jurisdictions.

In 1974, Steven Kazan filed a precedent-setting lawsuit on behalf of Reba Rudkin, who developed asbestosis after working for 29 years at the Johns-Manville manufacturing plant in Pittsburg, California. Kazan sued Johns-Manville in a civil lawsuit, even though Mr. Rudkin worked for Johns-Manville and the company would normally be protected from such a lawsuit because workers' compensation is the exclusive remedy for an employee suing an employer. But we argued that Manville and its executives should not be shielded from fraud and conspiracy charges.

In January 1978, at a deposition taken during the course of discovery in this case, Wilbur Ruff, the Pittsburg plant manager in the 1960s, was asked if there had been "a policy in the company ... not to talk to the employee about chest findings, findings that suggested asbestosis, pneumoconiosis or mesothelioma." Ruff testified, "Yes, it was policy." [Brodeur p.167-168] It was known as the "hush hush policy." The evidence of fraud and conspiracy started to emerge.

During this period, numerous incriminating Johns-Manville documents were discovered that proved fraud and conspiracy. These included the personal records of Sumner Simpson, president of Raybestos Manhattan, who corresponded frequently with Vandiver Brown, General Counsel of Johns-Manville. The letters disclosed that as early as the 1930s these companies conspired to suppress knowledge about the hazards of asbestos.

Needing to authenticate this correspondence, a former Firm principal, Aaron Simon, attempted to locate original documents signed by Vandiver Brown. Johns-Manville repeatedly claimed under oath that Brown was deceased, so Simon hired an investigator to locate a copy of his will and death certificate, hoping these documents would enable him to authenticate Brown's signature. Instead, the investigator found that Brown was alive in Waco, Texas, and a dues-paying member of the New York State Bar Association. In the end, Brown was declared incompetent to give a deposition. Instead, his guardian was deposed and he authenticated Brown's signature on the Sumner Simpson papers.

In November 1981, Steven Kazan tried the case of Bob Speake, a co-worker of Reba Rudkin. By this time a major victory had been won against against Johns-Manville, when the California Supreme Court ruled that workers could sue their employers when circumstances like those in Rudkin applied. This enabled Mr. Speake and other Pittsburg plant workers to proceed with their cases in civil court against their employer, Johns-Manville. In February 1982, Kazan obtained a verdict of $150,000 for Mr. Speake against Johns-Manville.

Paul Brodeur has written that this case marked a "threshold in asbestos litigation" because it gave rise to a number of punitive damage verdicts against Johns-Manville. [Brodeur, p.177] The Firm set many other Johns-Manville factory worker cases for trial, but in August 1982, Johns-Manville filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to avoid paying compensation to the growing number of victims of diseases caused by exposure to its asbestos products.

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