Jury Awards $22 Million in Los Angeles Mesothelioma Lawsuit

Posted on January 16, 2011 by Justinian

On November 18th of 2010, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury awarded $22.7 million dollars to the Pfeifer family.  William Pfeifer had spent over 30 years working in the U.S. Navy and other locations with products that contained asbestos.  These products included boilers, gaskets, and packing, much of which was manufactured by John Crane, Inc.  Many Navy vets have filed similar mesothelioma lawsuits because of exposure to asbestos on board Navy ships.

The jury found John Crane to be 70% at fault for manufacturing products that were defectively designed and marketed.  The jury also found that John Crane's products were a substantial contributing factor to William Pfeifer's mesothelioma.

Many people who have been exposed to asbestos while working with John Crane's products have filed mesothelioma lawsuits against the company.  I don't know if the Pfeifer's reside in California, but even if they do not, they would have been able to bring their mesothelioma lawsuit in California if William worked with asbestos products in the state.  As I've written before, determining what state to file a mesothelioma lawsuit in is one of the most important tasks facing an asbestos lawyer.

Many asbestos lawyers like California because the courts are fair to individuals who contracted mesothelioma.  For example, William Pfeifer was diagnosed with mesothelioma in June of 2009 and had his trial in November of 2010.  Although that may sound like a long time, it's actually considerably less time than it would have been in many other states. 

The award consisted of $8.2 million dollars in economic damages and noneconomic damages, plus $14.5 million in punitive damages.  Punitive damages aren't always available in mesothelioma lawsuits, but when they are awarded, they tend to be substantial.

The case was Pfeifer v. Buffalo Pumps, Inc. and the cause number was BC416536.

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

Poor Ventilation on USS Midway Leads to Mesothelioma Lawsuit

Posted on January 11, 2011 by Justinian

One of the neat parts about working on mesothelioma lawsuits is that you sometimes get to review some very interesting documents.  Right now, I'm working on a mesothelioma lawsuit filed on behalf of a gentleman who spent a number of years working on the USS Midway.  As part of the workup of the case, I'm scouring old reports from the Navy about the ship.

In 1949, the Navy did a complete inspection of the ship and documents all of the problems the ship had.  Two things immediately jumped out at me.  First, there were several areas of the ship that had poor ventilation.  Second, the inspection revealed that there wasn't a single vacuum cleaner aboard the ship.  You might say, "so what?"  (That's exactly what my wife said.)  Well, the report noted that without a vacuum, the crew was unable to clean out any dust that accumulated in and around the air vents.

Poor ventilation and dusty air vents can increase the hazard of exposure to asbestos.  There were miles of asbestos-insulated pipe on board the ship, as well as any number of pumps, valves, generators, and compressors that used asbestos components.  Whenever someone disturbed any of the asbestos, the dust would be released into the air.  In rooms with poor ventilation, the dust would stay there for a long period of time, and anyone working in the room would breathe it.  Asbestos dust pushed into air vents would be distributed throughout the ship, exposing other sailors to asbestos.

There have been a great number of asbestos lawsuits and mesothelioma lawsuits filed on behalf of Navy veterans who were exposed to asbestos while aboard ships and submarines, including the USS Midway.  The narrow confines of a ship made it easy for anyone aboard to get exposed to asbestos, but it appears the Midway made it even easier because dust could get trapped and the crew (prior to 1949, anyway) had no way of vacuuming the dust.

One of the standard defense attorney arguments is that asbestos saved the lives of many sailors by protecting them from fire.  Is it really "saving" someone's life to trade death from fire for death from mesothelioma?