Asbestos Lawsuits

Asbestos litigation involves the filing of lawsuits against companies that were responsible for employees, or others, exposure to asbestos. It is now known that exposure to asbestos is one of the primary causes of mesothelioma, a deadly cancer. Asbestos exposure also causes another serious lung condition, asbestosis.

Wrongful Death Asbestos Lawsuits

In many cases, people who have contracted asbestos-related diseases die from these diseases. A wrongful death lawsuit is filed when there is a fatality that occurs due the negligence on the part of another person or entity. In the case of asbestos lawsuits, the companies who employed asbestos workers were negligent in several ways:

• The companies did not protect their workers from the hazards of asbestos even though these hazards were well known,
• The companies did not notify their workers about the hazards of asbestos exposure and
• In some cases, the companies took steps to conceal the hazards of asbestos from their workers.

Wrongful death lawsuits, if won, can compensate the victim’s family for the loss of a lifetime of earnings the victim would have had, if he or she had lived. Wrongful death lawsuit settlements can also compensate the victim’s family for health care bills, medications, funeral arrangements, etc. Depending on the level of negligence, punitive damages can be awarded for a company’s actions. In cases where there is no fatality, asbestos lawsuits compensate victims for the asbestos related disease causing the loss in the quality of life or the loss of ability to maintain a specific profession.

During asbestos lawsuits, whether for wrongful death or not, the victim has to demonstrate that the asbestos exposure occurred as a direct result of the defendant’s actions. In many cases, the victim may have had a profession, such as a pipe fitter or insulation installer, that provided direct contact with asbestos due to actions of a specific employer. However, in other cases, people, such as dry cleaners or family members of asbestos workers, may have been exposed to large quantities of asbestos not having a specific asbestos-related profession. For this second type of victim, the link between the asbestos exposure and the negligent company may be more difficult to prove.

Asbestos Litigation

According to a RAND report entitled “Asbestos Litigation” (2005), asbestos exposure will have caused between 42,000 and 229,000 excess deaths during the 25 year period from 1985 to 2009, and untold victim injuries. Over 700,000 asbestos lawsuits have already been filed against 8,200 different companies and defendants. The rate of growth of this litigation is increasing, even though exposure to asbestos has fallen since the early 1970’s, when most products no longer contained asbestos. One reason for the growth in asbestos litigation is due to the long incubation period of asbestos-related diseases. In most cases, patients do not know that they have contracted an asbestos related disease until three or four decades after the asbestos exposure.

Asbestos Lawyers

Asbestos lawyers specialize in lawsuits filed against employers who exposed their employees to asbestos. Asbestos litigation can sometimes be very complicated because of the long time period between exposure to asbestos and the detection of the diseases, such as asbestosis or mesothelioma. This can be further complicated if the victim worked in several different asbestos related professions, or if he or she had a profession independent of the asbestos industry. Moreover, it can difficult to establish which specific company was responsible for the asbestos exposure and the asbestos-related disease. An asbestos attorney should have experience handling asbestos exposure cases and in recognizing the link between the victim’s activities and asbestos exposure.