Riel, now retired from GE and a city councillor, isn’t surprised that in the years since the WSIB has paid out on more than 100 claims from GE workers and their survivors. He told The Examiner he thought the number should be higher.

“Hopefully the people, and widows, are getting what they deserve,” Riel said.

Aileen Hughes can only shake her head about the scope of the illnesses. Hughes’s husband, Morris, died from mesothelioma in September 2003.

Mesothelioma is an asbestos-related cancer that attacks the lungs. He was 72 and had worked with asbestos material at the Park St. plant.

Morris got a job with GE in Peterborough when he was 17, Aileen Hughes said, and worked for the company for 42 years.

He began getting sick in 2001, she said, experiencing fevers and shaking, symptoms the two attributed to a reaction to food.

By June 2002 Morris was struggling to breath.

Doctors initially suspected pneumonia. But after a battery of tests, they told the couple Morris had cancer and had about three months to live.

Hughes said her husband’s case was the first time anyone could prove an illness was directly related to work with asbestos at GE.

Morris’s illness helped spur the massive intake clinic for employees concerned about their asbestos exposure in 2004.

Christine Arnott, spokeswoman for the WSIB, said the board has received 230 asbestos-related claims from Peterborough GE employees over the past 20 years.

The board has allowed 112 of those claims. Between 2002 and 2011 alone, 107 General Electric workers received compensation packages for asbestos-related illness.

After April 20, 2012 – the Statute of Limitations for filing claims with Thorpe Insulation Trust is “Claims must be filed within one year of the date of death…(unless exceptions apply)….”

The study reported that “male asbestos workers were 63 percent likelier to die of a stroke and 39 percent likelier to die of heart disease when compared with the general public, even when smoking was taken into account. The corresponding figures for female asbestos workers were 100 percent and 89 percent. The workers were part of a survey set up in 1971 to monitor the long-term health of people in the asbestos industry.”

According to a report by the Associated Foreign Press, “doctors have long wondered whether asbestos, as an inflammatory agent, is also a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. But the connection has until now never been clear, mainly because studies lacked information about whether an individual smoked. Over half of the women in the new study were smokers at the time of their first medical examination, and these proportions were almost unchanged when they had their last assessment.”

To read the article posted by the AFP, click here.
To read the study in its entirety, click here.

The Court’s ruling is based upon the legal doctrine known as “preemption.” Under this principle, the Court held that since there was a federal statute that by virtue of its operation  permitted the use of the asbestos, the victim’s state law claims for failure to warn are barred.  While the holding can be read to be a narrow one premised on the Locomotive Inspection Act (LIA), 49 U. S. C. §20701 et seq, there is of course concern that the asbestos industry will ask Courts to interpret the decision broadly in an attempt to knock out other kinds of state law claims involving defective products.  

In my opinion, the decision over reaches and is wrong. Just because an asbestos product is permitted  should not eliminate the manufacturer’s obligation to warn of known dangers. The effect of the decision is cruel placing the risk of loss on those already devastated in injury and mortality.  The irony is that the specifications that allow the use of asbestos and other dangerous products are not written solely by the government but often originate with the manufacturers themselves who know full well of the dangers posed by the use of their products.  This  decision gives a free pass to wrongdoers and places the burden of paying for medical care on the innocent and ultimately the taxpayers who will foot the extraordinary medicals bills ultimately paid for by Medicare and Medicaid. 

For those readers with the interest to read the decision in its entirety you can click on http://www.supreme court.gov/opinions/11pdf/10-879.pdf.

The New York Appellate Court upheld a 1.5 million dollar verdict in a mesothelioma case.  The defendant at trial was Fisher Controls. In upholding the verdict the Court found that the plaintiff had proven the defendant acted recklessly and therefor was responsible to the plaintiff in the amount of $480,000. Congratulations to my good friend Jordan Fox.

“To be sure, the reversal of the policy behind accepting mesothelioma cases and the trial of mesothelioma cases in Philadelphia is not good for plaintiffs as a whole. ” says Chris Placitella who chairs the American Association for Justice asbestos litigation group. Placitella, who was recently named by Trial Magazine as one of the 100 most influential trial lawyers in America rationalizes, “The silver lining, if there is one, is that people who develop mesothelioma in Pennsylvania will hopefully have their cases tried sooner with a less crowded docket.”

The directive also makes it more difficult for out of state lawyers to try asbestos cases in Philadelphia limiting any particular lawyer to two cases per year. The irony according to Placitella is that it is that some defendants and national defense firms will feel the weight of the court directive the most. Some out of state national defense counsel have made a living trying cases in Philadelphia even though they are not formally admitted to practice law in Pennsylvania. According to Placitella, plaintiffs whose cases belong in Pennsylvania will not be harmed by this directive assuming they still receive timely trial dates.  Those cases will simply be referred to law firms like ours who have a long history of success in the Pennsylvania court system.  Placitella’s law firm,  Cohen Placitella & Roth with offices in Philadelphia and New Jersey has a long  standing history of prosecuting cases in PA. Many corporate defendants on the other hand need to go out shopping for Pennsylvania lawyers to try their cases. The defendants will no longer have the choice of bringing  in outside national counsel to try the cases which will open up new opportunities for Pennsylvania lawyers. Other mass tort cases not involving asbestos, such as cases against the drug companies,  remain unaffected at this time. A copy of the Court directive is attached.