Asbestos Legal Journal - News & Updates on Asbestos and Mesothelioma Law

In any kind of lawsuit that alleges a specific product caused a certain type of illness, the plaintiff must prove both general causation and specific causation.

General causation means proving that the product in question is actually capable of causing the specific illness.  Because there is absolutely zero debate that exposure to crocidolite asbestos can cause mesothelioma, a plaintiff doesn't have to do much to prove general causation if he or she was exposed to crocidolite. 

Specific causation means proving that the product in question actually caused the plaintiff's illness.  A plaintiff who was exposed to crocidolite asbestos and who developed mesothelioma will have to prove that those exposures to crocidolite caused his or her mesothelioma.  For example, if the plaintiff worked with crocidolite for one weekend, but worked with amosite for thirty years, it will be difficult to prove that crocidolite specifically caused the illness.

Specific causation is most difficult if the illness is lung cancer and the plaintiff is also a smoker.  Because smoking causes lung cancer, it would be difficult to prove a plaintiff's exposure to asbestos is what caused his or her lung cancer, regardless of how much asbestos he or she was exposed to.

If you have any questions about this blog post - or anything else on this site - please e-mail me at justinian@justinian.us

In the context of an asbestos lawsuit, the word potency means the relative ability of one type of asbestos to cause mesothelioma or other cancers vs. another type of asbestos.  Most scientists agree that crocidolite is the most potent type of asbestos, and chrysotile is the least potent type of asbestos, with amosite being somewhere in the middle.

There is disagreement among asbestos doctors as to how much more potent that crocidolite is than chrysotile.  Some asbestos experts believe the ratio is as high as 500:1, while others think it is closer to 10:1.  Regardless of how much more potent crocidolite is, there is no debate that exposure to crocidolite asbestos can cause mesothelioma and other types of cancers.

However, there have been many mesothelioma lawsuits filed on behalf of individuals who were only exposed to chrysotile asbestos; asbestos lawyers do not require that an individual be exposed to crocidolite or amosite asbestos in order to file an asbestos lawsuit.

If you have any questions about this blog post - or anything else on this site - please e-mail me at justinian@justinian.us

Asbestos is toxic to humans.  The more asbestos a person is exposed to, the more likely they will develop an illness because of it.  Thus, your response to asbestos is related to the dose of it you receive.

One of the common issues in asbestos lawsuits is whether the dose a person received is sufficient to have caused a person's illness.  You might think it should be simple - if a person has mesothelioma and was exposed to asbestos, then that must have been a sufficient dose.  Unfortunately, it's not that easy.

If a person was exposed to asbestos made by five different companies, the asbestos lawyers who represent each company will argue that the person's exposure to that specific company's asbestos was not sufficient to cause the person's illness.  At this point, it is impossible to prove which company's asbestos actually caused a person's mesothelioma or other illness.  So the best an asbestos attorney representing an injured person can do is prove that the person's exposure to a specific company's asbestos was sufficient to cause the person's illness.

If you have any questions about this blog post - or anything else on this site - please e-mail me at justinian@justinian.us

There are two major types of asbestos lawsuits filed: Premises liability asbestos lawsuits, and products liability asbestos lawsuits. 

A premises liability asbestos lawsuit is filed against a person or company who owned the premises where a person was exposed to asbestos.  For example, if a plaintiff in a mesothelioma lawsuit was often in a building that had asbestos in it, the case against the owner of the building would be considered a premises liability case.

Individuals and companies can be held liable in asbestos lawsuits for maintaining an unsafe premises, including a premises that caused people to be exposed to asbestos.  A single asbestos lawsuit might contain premises liability claims and products liability claims.

Juries can award three types of damages in an asbestos lawsuit or a mesothelioma lawsuit.  Those are: Economic damages, noneconomic damages, and punitive damages.

While economic damages and noneconomic damages are designed to compensate the victims in an asbestos lawsuit, punitive damages are designed to punish the defendant.  They are sometimes referred to as exemplary damages.

Punitive damages aren't available in all asbestos lawsuits.  Typically, they're only available in cases in which the defendant knowingly did something that put a person in an extreme risk of being harmed by asbestos. 

To prove that punitive damages should be assessed, asbestos lawyers who represent injured people typically introduce evidence that the defendant knew about the hazards of asbestos, but ignored those hazards for financial gain.  Internal documents showing that an asbestos company cared more about profits than about killing people make for powerful evidence and have been the basis for many multimillion-dollar punitive damages awards in asbestos lawsuits.

However, just as is the case with economic damages, many states have put caps on the amount of punitive damages that a jury may award in an asbestos lawsuit.  If you're curious as to whether your state has capped the amount of punitive damages available in an asbestos lawsuit, feel free to contact me.

One issue that arises frequently in asbestos lawsuits is whether asbestos made by a specific company ever entered the breathing zone of the injured person.  The breathing zone is the area around a person that contains the air they actually breathe in.  If a specific company's asbestos never entered a person's breathing zone, then the person never breathed that company's asbestos. 

It's important in an asbestos lawsuit to prove that the injured person actually breathed the asbestos fibers made by a specific company.  You cannot get mesothelioma or asbestosis from being near asbestos - you only get it by breathing asbestos.

Asbestos lawyers will ask a variety of questions during depositions and trials to determine whether or not a person was close enough to a company's asbestos products to breathe in the asbestos dust.  For example, pipefitters often created asbestos dust.  An asbestos attorney who represents someone who worked near pipefitters would need to prove that the person worked near enough to the pipefitters for any dust created by the pipefitters to end up in the person's breathing zone.

Asbestos is a naturally occuring mineral.  Some of it is therefore present in the air everyone breathes.  It is also present in older buildings, automobiles, and machinery.  This also causes asbestos to be present in the air everyone breathes.

The amount of asbestos in the air is referred to as the background level of asbestos.  The background level of asbestos will vary from location to location.  For example, there are large asbestos deposits in certain parts of California.  The background level of asbestos in those areas will therefore be higher than areas without any asbestos desposits.

Asbestos lawyers who represent defendants in asbestos lawsuits often argue that the injured person's exposure to asbestos was at or below the background level.  If that were true, then it becomes more difficult to prove the person's injuries were actually caused by exposure to the defendant's asbestos.

Although not everyone agrees, many asbestos experts believe that the background level of asbestos is getting lower because there aren't nearly as many products that contain asbestos today as there were forty years ago.  For example, in the 1970's, every brake pad contained asbestos.  Every time a car's brakes were applied, some asbestos fibers would be released into the air.  Today, almost no brake pads contain asbestos.  It therefore makes sense that the amount of asbestos in the air today is lower than it was forty years ago.

What the background level of asbestos in a given city is, and whether it has declined over time are two issues that may arise in any asbestos lawsuit.