$2.3 Million: Asbestos Pleural Mesothelioma Settlement for a Middletown, Ohio Steel Worker

In 2016, the spouse of a Middletown, Ohio steel worker contacted The Lyon Firm after her husband of fifty years received a diagnosis of pleural mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive cancer caused almost exclusively by asbestos exposure.

Joseph Lyon responded immediately and met with the family in their home the same day. As the disease accelerated, the firm made several further visits at the hospital. The worker was diagnosed in February 2016 and passed away weeks later, leaving his surviving spouse.

After investigating the work history, The Lyon Firm identified the responsible defendants from historical records and prior asbestos litigation and filed a lawsuit in Madison County, Illinois, with Illinois-based co-counsel. The complaint named sixty-seven defendants, including the steel company and the manufacturers, distributors, marketers, and installers of the raw asbestos and the asbestos-containing products likely present across his work and home environments.

Over roughly four years, the case was litigated and resolved in settlements with all named defendants.

The lawsuit alleged that the worker was exposed to asbestos over decades in industrial jobs. After his service in Vietnam, he worked as a laborer and engineer from the 1960s through 2010, and his asbestos exposure occurred between 1963 and 1979 at industrial facilities that included a steel plant in Middletown, Ohio. According to the complaint, his exposure came from two main sources:

• On the job: He worked around products known to contain large amounts of asbestos, including steam pipe coverings, block insulation, refractory bricks and cement in furnaces, stoves, and ladles, gaskets and packing materials in valves, pumps, and pipe joints, and brakes and clutches in cranes and other heavy equipment.
• At home: Asbestos dust came home on his work clothing, and he encountered asbestos again during personal automotive work on brakes, clutches, and engine gaskets and home remodeling involving insulation, drywall, and tile.

The complaint alleged that many of these companies knew, or should have known, that asbestos was dangerous and failed to take basic steps to protect workers. The failures it alleged included:

• Not warning workers about asbestos risks
• Failing to provide safer alternatives
• Not supplying protective equipment
• Ignoring known safety standards
• Failing to warn families about take-home exposure
• Continuing to use asbestos after its dangers were widely understood

The case weighed the comparative liability of several groups of defendants across many years and worksites. Each defendant owed its own duties, and the degree of exposure linked to any one company's product could vary widely, which raised difficult questions of causation and comparative fault. The defendants fell into four groups:

• Product manufacturers, which allegedly made or sold asbestos-containing materials and, according to the complaint, failed to properly test, label, or warn about the hazards while continuing to sell the products that reached the worker at his jobs and in his home projects.
• Contractors, who worked at the industrial sites and, the lawsuit claimed, may have created unsafe conditions by using asbestos materials without protecting workers.
• Site owners and employers, who controlled the workplaces and were alleged to have failed to maintain safe conditions or warn workers about known dangers.
• An insurance company, alleged to have helped suppress or misrepresent information about asbestos hazards.

The case also raised the question of spoliation of evidence, the destruction or loss of records a company had a duty to preserve. That allegation was never proven here. Where spoliation is established, the law provides remedies, because missing records about asbestos risks, product distribution, or corporate knowledge can make a victim's case harder to prove and can increase a company's exposure to liability.

The litigation resolved in settlements with each named defendant for a collective amount of more than $2.3 million, paid to the surviving spouse over the course of five years. That compensation accounted for:

1. Medical expenses and care;
2. Pain and suffering before death;
3. Loss of companionship and support;
4. Funeral and burial costs;
5. Other financial and emotional losses.

The settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing or an indication that any defendant violated any law. It represents a resolution of disputed claims. Settlement results depend on the facts and circumstances of each case, and past results are not a guarantee or prediction of the result of any other case.