Congratulations to Brendan Tully who won a 2.5 million dollar verdict today against John Crane in New York City. Tom Burns tried the case for John Crane, John Crane a manufacturer of asbestos containing gaskets continues to assert a scorched earth policy toward settlement. Today the earth scorched John Crane.
New York City Mesothelioma Lawsuit Verdict 2.5 Million
October 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment
California Supreme Court Takes A Stand in Favor of First Amendment in Mesothelioma and Asbestos Litigation
October 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Yesterday the California Supreme Court took a stand in favor of the First Amendment and overruled the trial court which ordered the plaintiff lawyer to take down her website during trial. The initial application was made by Volkswagen and later joined in by Ford, both of which are known for very aggressive litigation tactics in mesothelioma and asbestos death cases. This ruling is an important precedent for free speech. A full copy of the briefing filed with the court is available by clicking here, and also here.
$20,000,000 Awarded to the Family of a Mesothelioma Victim in a Liability Case Involving Asbestos Joint Compound
September 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A Broward County Florida jury awarded $20,000,000 to the family of a mesothelioma victim who was exposed to asbestos over the course of a four-month remodeling job in his home that used asbestos containing joint compound. The jury found Union Carbide, the supplier of the asbestos that went into the joint compound 80% responsible.
Read more: http://www.mesotheliomalegalblog.com
$282,685 Mesothelioma Verdict in a Liability Case Involving Asbestos Exposure
August 30, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Congratulations to attorneys, Nate Finch and James Ledlie of Motley Rice, along with Gary Kendall and Kyle McNew of Michie Hamlett. They worked tirelessly on behalf of the family of James “Doug” Lokey, to obtain a $282,685 verdict in a liability case involving asbestos exposure. According to the legal team, this recent mesothelioma verdict was achieved along with the legal assistance of Will Harty of Patten, Wornom, Hatten & Diamonstein, L.C. who assisted with jurisdiction.
A liability verdict was issued late yesterday in Albemarle County, Virginia, against manufacturers Ford and Honeywell after jurors found that both companies exposed a former state trooper to asbestos which led him to contract the deadly lung disease mesothelioma at the age of 84.
Plaintiffs in this case were the family of James “Doug” Lokey, a former state trooper who died in 2007 from mesothelioma. Mr. Lokey was exposed to asbestos from brakes in the 1966-74 time frame as a result of going into state inspection stations and watching mechanics do blowout on Ford, GM and Chrysler vehicles. He also worked at the Norfolk Naval shipyard during World War II.
In the verdict, the six-member jury found that both Ford and Honeywell were negligent for failing to warn Mr. Lokey about the dangers of exposure to asbestos while at work. According to the legal team who represented Mr. Lokey, “ there were no settlement offers by Ford or Honeywell at any time.” Both companies held strong to deny their liability.
New York Mesothelioma Lawyers Obtain Two Mesothelioma Verdicts Over $20 Million on Behalf of Clients Exposed to Asbestos on Job Sites
August 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I want to offer my congratulations to my friends Jordan Fox and Jim Long who obtained a $20 million verdict against building contractor/owner (Tishman). In this case, New York lawyers Jim Long, Bryan Belasky, Seth Dymond and Bill Papain fought hard on behalf of their client, a New York City laborer/carpenter, who was diagnosed with mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos on the job site. According to the legal team, “the defendant was found reckless and is 100% responsible for the verdict.”
The same legal team also obtained a $32 million verdict against Crane and Elliott, on behalf of their client, a career Navy boiler tender. According to the legal team, “Crane was allocated 99 % and Elliott was allocated 1%, and both mesothelioma lawsuits turned into legal battles which played out over nine weeks, with the defendants fighting hard to defend their actions. Both successful actions prove that the legal team fought with vigor and restlessness to receive just compensation for their clients.
Mesothelioma Cancer Vaccine To Be Studied in Mesothelioma Trial at Cardiff University
June 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A new mesothelioma trial is scheduled to begin shortly at Cardiff University to test a new mesothelioma cancer vaccine.
The researchers at Cardiff University and the Velindre Cancer Centre in Cardiff have in the past, partnered with Oxford, England-based Oxford BioMedica to study the company’s immunotherapy cancer vaccine called TroVax. According to Eric Butchart, discoverer of the Butchart Staging System, which was the first staging system to be developed to identify mesothelioma cancer, the vaccine offers great hope for mesothelioma cancer research. Mr. Butchart has spent time working with the research team,
In mesothelioma cancer, like any other cancer diagnosis, the cells do not die off, but continue to spread to other areas of the body.
TroVax works by harnessing the power of the patient’s own immune system. The study’s lead researcher, Dr. Zsuzsanna Tabi of Cardiff University, recently discovered that mesothelioma tumor cells, like many other cancer cells, express a protein called 5T4. TroVax works by stimulating a patient’s body to produce an anti-5T4 immune response which would theoretically then target any tumor cells carrying the 5T4 protein.
Although TroVax has been shown to produce an immune response against other types of cancer cells, a Phase III trial of the vaccine for renal cancer was stopped when it was determined the drug would not improve survival. The new study represents the first time TroVax has been studied for mesothelioma. TroVax will be studied in combination with the standard chemotherapeutic drugs for mesothelioma, Alimta and cisplatin.
New therapeutic agents are particularly important for mesothelioma, because it is so aggressive and because there are so few options now available to patients. Currently, most mesothelioma patients are treated with a combination of chemotherapy, surgery and radiation. Even with these treatments, the prognosis is modest and life expectancy may be less than 18 months.
Immunotherapy drugs like TroVax may offer new hope for hard-to-cure cancers like mesothelioma. American biotech company Dendreon recently became the first company to win FDA approval for a cancer vaccine. They produce Provenge for prostate cancer.
The TroVax UK study is being funded by the June Hancock Mesothelioma Research Fund. No details have yet been released on how this new study will be funded or whether it will continue to utilize TroVax.
Sources:
“Oxford Biomedica Announces Collaborative Phase I/II Study to Evaluate TroVax is Mesothelioma”, June 24, 2010, ADVFN, News Service for the London Stock Exchange.
“Oxford BioMedica Collaborates With Cancer Immunologists to Evaluate TroVax In Phase I/II Study in Mesothelioma”, RTT News, StockMarketsReview.com.
Recent update received, Eric G Butchart, Retired, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University Hospital of Wales, Cardiff, United Kingdom
Asbestos Exposure at John Crane Leads to $1,200,000 Verdict for Worker
June 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment
A jury verdict of $1,200,000 was awarded to Richard Nybeck, an elderly man who claimed he suffered shortness of breath because of asbestos-related conditions, against John Crane; for allegedly being exposed to an asbestos-containing product while at work. I would like to congratulate plaintiff’s attorney Eliot Present for his hard work securing this verdict on behalf of Mr. Nybeck.
At issue was whether an asbestos related condition, called Symptomatic Pleural Disease, contracted by the plaintiff, was the factual cause behind their respective shortness of breath.
The trial originated from a mass tort asbestos docket with dozens upon dozens of complaints, but was eventually narrowed down to a handful of defendants, one being the Nybeck case.
The summary judgment which was handed down by the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas was reversed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which ordered the case to go to trial, despite claims that the defendant had not been “sick enough,” according to the courts, or that his smoking may have contributed to his illness.
Nybeck is on oxygen and lives in Arizona so he was unable to attend the proceedings. The verdict could impact many cases beyond asbestos litigation by setting the standard of review of summary judgments as a de novo review.
California Mesothelioma Lawyers Obtain $830,000 Verdict for Lunch Truck Driver Exposed to Asbestos At Work
May 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In a recent mesothelioma trial in San Francisco, California lawyers Sean Worsey and Lisa Espada, of the law firm of Levin Simes Kaiser & Gornick LLP obtained an $830,000 mesothelioma verdict on behalf of their client, an 85-year-old Oakland, California resident, exposed to asbestos after pulling his lunch truck into the Highland Stucco manufacturing facility twice daily from 1971-1972 to cater to company employees. I would like to congratulate them for their hard work fighting on behalf of mesothelioma victims and their families.
Asbestos Exposure in Illinois Community Sparks a Debate Over Liability
May 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment
In Belleville, Illinois a debate is ensuing over who is liable for asbestos exposure which has occurred at East Main and Jackson streets after the demolition of two buildings, which contained three businesses — the Classic Curl beauty salon, a mental health center for Chestnut Health Systems and the Hilltop Emporium thrift store. The businesses suffered a fire just a year ago causing them to be shutdown.
Hank’s Excavating and Landscaping Inc. was hired to excavate the building and in the process asbestos was exposed into the air. Asbestos which has been exposed into the air can cause respiratory-tract cancer, pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma (tumors of the membranes lining the chest and abdominal cavities and surrounding internal organs), and other cancers. All forms of asbestos have been proven to be human carcinogens, as declared by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the US National Toxicology Program (NYP), and countless others.
Asbestos causes malignant mesothelioma and other cancers that develop due to asbestos exposure.
Illinois state representatives cited the city, the two property owners and Hank’s for allowing the asbestos into the air and for not notifying the IEPA of the demolition back in August.
According to an article that was recently published by Belleville News-Democrat on May 15, 2011, which recounted the incident, “In that citation, they were told to clean up the asbestos, pay a $300 fee and report all of the steps to the IEPA. Because the parties haven’t done that, IEPA spokeswoman Maggie Carson said, the state agency took the next step and told all of them April 5 that the agency would turn the case over to the Attorney General’s office if nothing was done in 30 days. That time has passed, city leaders met with the IEPA, and nothing was resolved, Carson said. Now, IEPA officials are trying to determine what to do next.”
Releasing any form of asbestos into the air can be a tremendous health hazard to the workers in that area, the community, not to mention the firefighters who responded to the fire, who may have inhaled toxic levels of asbestos.
Because the location is deemed private property, there is a debate ensuing in regards to who should be held responsible and who should be in charge of the cleanup.
To read more about the debate, view the entire story here: http://www.bnd.com/2011/05/15/1709106/fire-still-leaves-big-hole-in.html
Mesothelioma Victim Awarded $25 Million Verdict Against Exxon Mobil Corporation
March 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
I would like to extend my congratulations to my close personal friends, Bobby Hatten, Hugh McCormick and Will Harty of Patten, Wornom, Hatten & Diamonstein for their $25 million verdict against Exxon Mobil Corporation on behalf of former shipyard worker, Rubert “Bert” Minton, 72, who was diagnosed with mesothelioma after years of working for the oil giant, as a repair supervisor on commercial vessels at Newport News Shipbuilding between 1966 and 1977. Minton had previously worked there for seven years as a ship fitter in new construction, and regularly worked at the shipyard on Exxon commercial oil tankers that were then being repaired. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma that doctors said he got from breathing billions of asbestos fibers while at the yard.
In a recent article published by The Baltimore Sun, Bobby Hatten, Minton’s lead attorney, was quoted as saying, ‘the jury awarded Minton $12 million in compensatory damages, $12.5 million in punitive damages, and $430,961 in medical expenses, plus interest. That brings the total verdict to about $25 million.”
The article goes on to state, “Exxon got a good, old-fashioned horse whipping is what it is,” said Hatten, who was at Al Fresco’s restaurant Thursday afternoon celebrating with about 35 staffers and attorneys from his law firm, Patten, Wornom, Hatten and Diamonstein.”
“But the $25 million verdict will be automatically reduced to about $17.5 million, Hatten said. That’s because although the jury awarded $12.5 million in punitive damages, it was legally limited to the $5 million that Hatten had requested for that portion of the verdict.”
“They awarded two-and-a-half times what I asked for,” Hatten said, saying he had not previously seen punitive damages of more than $100,000 in an asbestos case. “That shows how upset they were at Exxon.”
To read the entire article, click here.
