By Rick Shapiro, Rail Worker Cancer Lawsuit Attorney in Virginia

A retired plumber who was diagnosed with mesothelioma almost a decade after he stopped working with asbestos-infused wallboards and joint compounds is set to receive just more than $41 million in negligence awards and punitive damages from the companies that produced and supplied the dangerous products. John Casey, who worked as plumber in California for 40 years, won jury verdicts in two separate civil trials brought against Kaiser Gypsum Company and construction contractor FDCC California.

Jurors in San Francisco, CA, determined that both the manufacturer and the contractor had failed to provide adequate warnings about the adverse health effects of breathing in asbestos particles. Exposure to asbestos is practically the only cause of the fatal cancer mesothelioma.

Casey’s attorney’s, Michael A. Vasquez, Esq. and Robert J. Bugatto, Esq. of Vasquez, Estrada & Conway, LLP, “presented evidence showing that the knowledge of hazards of exposure to asbestos dates prior to the 1920s … [and]  knowledge of its dangers had progressed to the point of knowing it caused cancer by at least as early as the 1950s.” Showing juries what companies that failed to protect their employees against on-the-job asbestos exposures knew and when they knew it is often key to securing verdicts favorable to workers who developed cancer or another disease.

I have used this legal strategy myself when representing former rail employees such as brakemen, conductors, engineers and trackmen in occupational disease and wrongful death lawsuits brought against railroads under the provisions of the Federal Employers’ Liability Act in Virginia (VA). FELA place a high and nondelegable duty on rail companies to protect their workers against toxic substance exposures. This duty includes an obligation to inspect rail yards, train cars and locomotives for potential sources of asbestos, diesel fumes and radiation, as well as a duty to warn employees about the presence of health risks. Any dereliction of those statutory duties makes railroads such as Amtrak, CSX or Norfolk Southern potentially liable for claims of negligence and for making monetary damage awards to workers who become sick.

While asbestos has all but disappeared from newer equipment used in the railroad industry, the material still exists in insulation in older buildings, pipe sleeves in some locomotives and in fire resistant materials such as brake pads on decades-old undercarriages. The greatest risks for asbestos-related occupational disease, however, rest with retired rail employees. Damage done by asbestos can takes as long as 30 or 40 years to become apparent and can run the gamut from asthma to cancer to respiratory failure.

EJL

About the Editors: Shapiro, Cooper Lewis & Appleton is an injury law firm whose attorneys have long histories of representing railroad workers in FELA and other railroad injury cases.  Attorneys will our firm have served as chairmen of the Railroad section of the American Association for Justice. One of our attorneys wrote a major attorney’s encyclopedia section on railroad safety litigation. Check out our railroad injury case results to see for yourself. Our offices are in Virginia Beach and Hampton, Virginia (VA), and Elizabeth City, North Carolina (NC). Our lawyers also hold licenses to practice in South Carolina (SC), West Virginia (WV), Kentucky (KY), Florida (FL) and Washington, DC, and have handled hundreds of railroad injury and FELA cases throughout the eastern United States. Rick Shapiro and James Lewis were included in the 2011 issue of Best Lawyers in America. They, along with fellow attorney John M. Cooper, were also named 2011 Virginia Super Lawyers for Personal Injury Law, an honor which fewer than 5 percent of outstanding lawyers receive. We would like to send you one of our FREE reports about railroad injury and FELA cases, such as Dos and Don’ts When Injured at a Railroad — Yours FELA Rights and What Railroad Claim Agents Won’t Tell You (But You Must Know). We provide free initial confidential injury case consultations, so call us toll free at (800) 752-0042 before giving any statement or talking to a railroad claims agent. Our injury attorneys also host an extensive injury law video library on Youtube. Further, our lawyers proudly moderate the Yardlimits Railroad Community Forum and donate to the Fallen Brother Fund.