On Feb. 20, attorney Lou Thompson Black filed suit on behalf of Raymond Hairston Jr. in Orange County (Texas) District Court against 38 companies that Hairston charges deliberately conspired to conceal the dangers of asbestos from him when he worked for the various companies, their affiliates or associates.
The suit further claims that the corporate defendants - among them companies such as Viacom, GE and Zurn Industries - maliciously inflicted the plaintiff with an unspecified asbestos-related illness by manufacturing, selling and using asbestos-containing products.
According to Hairston's original petition, the 38 firms knew that the products they manufactured would reach the marketplace without inspection, and adds that the defendants have known, through various medical and scientific reports, of the dangers of asbestos for decades, but have knowingly conspired to keep the truth hidden from the public.
The suit seeks both punitive and exemplary damages, and has been assigned to Judge Pat Clark of the 60th Judicial District. The case lists Hairston, presumably a resident of N. Carolina, as the plaintiff and Southern Building Maintenance, Middlesex Insurance Co., and/or Jones, Hewson & Wollard Transportation Insurance Co. as defendants.
In an unrelated case, filed March 7, Thaddeus Alpough has filed a suit against 31 corporations in Texas' 60th district court. This suit charges that the 31 are responsible for Alpough's recently diagnosed malignant mesothelioma.
Asbestos is the only known cause of mesothelioma, a particularly lethal form of lung cancer that often doesn't manifest for three or more decades, by which time the prognosis is very poor. Most victims die within 18 months of diagnosis.
Alpough charges that continuous exposure to asbestos when he worked as a laborer, welder and supervisor led to his illness. Alpough had already sued the corporations named in the filing for an asbestos-related disease, but the courts have ruled that plaintiffs can file again if their asbestos illness later becomes cancerous.
This newest suit charges that the various companies failed to advise Alpough and other employees about the dangers of asbestos exposure, and provided their Alpough and others with substandard respirators and other equipment, which led to Alpough's now fatal disease.
Although's lawyer, Amy Witherite, filed the supplementary lawsuit in District Court citing a 2000 Texas Supreme Court decision allowing supplementary suits where asbestos-related illnesses become terminal.
Asbestos, when disturbed, releases tiny fibers that, inhaled, irritate lung tissue and lead to persistent inflammatory lesions. These lesions can, in turn, cause a range of illnesses, including lung cancer, cancer of the pharynx, cancer of the esophagus, stomach cancer, colon cancer, cancer of the rectum, asbestosis and pleural mesothelioma.
Asbestos exposure as low as 2 parts-per-million (ppm) can trigger lesions, which is why none of the monitoring and reporting agencies - OSHA, the CDC, and the American Cancer Society - has ever established minimum, safe levels of exposure. A day or a lifetime can trigger mesothelioma, which generally manifests in the lung (i.e., in 70 percent of exposures), but can also target the abdominal cavity (28 percent), or the heart or internal sexual organs (2 percent).
Health officials often refer to asbestos exposure as a "ticking time bomb", and admit that the future costs of asbestos-related diseases are incalculable. As in Alpough's case, asbestos-related disease can transform from a treatable, if not curable, condition like asbestosis to an incurable and always fatal disease like mesothelioma, leaving those exposed to asbestos largely at the mercy of time and beyond the aid of modern medicine.
That is not a comfortable place to be. In spite of that, asbestos - regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and restricted from use by responsible American manufacturers - nonetheless still finds its way into the workplace, creating legacy costs that rival Alzheimer's disease in terms of unpredictability.
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