The Legal Implications of Secondary Asbestos Exposure By the Numbers
Twenty thousand. That’s the number of asbestos fibers that can fit in the teeny, tiny space between Abe Lincoln’s nose and beard on a U.S. penny. Toxic asbestos fibers are much like toxic cigarettes. Smoking two or three hundred is usually harmful. Smoking two or three thousand is usually fatal. One-time exposure to asbestos is like smoking twenty thousand cigarettes at once.
These fibers float for up to seventy-two hours before they come to rest. During these three days, asbestos fibers often travel far from their sources, infecting many people who have no connection with the asbestos industry and no reason to believe they’ll contract a disease like mesothelioma.h
The final number to remember is nineteen seventy-eight, which is the year an asbestos exposure lawyer blew the top off the decades-long asbestos cover up. Scientists established the link between asbestos and adverse health issues in 1899. But asbestos companies successfully concealed the risk, so they could keep using this cheap insulation ingredient. In 1978, an obscure manager at an obscure Pittsburgh factory spilled the beans under oath.
Add these numbers together, and what do you get? Mathematically, you get 22,050. Legally, you get a large settlement for secondary asbestos exposure, at least in many cases. The risk of widespread secondary asbestos exposure is significant, and asbestos companies installed this dangerous substance in almost every commercial and residential structure built between 1900 and 1980. So, an asbestos exposure lawyer can obtain significant compensation for secondary exposure victims.
Before we discuss the legal implications of secondary asbestos exposure, let’s briefly examine some common asbestos exposure diseases. These illnesses are so bad that any secondary exposure risk, however slight, is too high.
Mesothelioma is the worst, and most common, asbestos exposure lung disease. Toxic asbestos particles cause tumors to form in the mesothelium (membrane layer that separates the heart and lungs). Mostly because the tumor grows on the edge of the lung, most victims don’t get physically sick for at least fifty years.
At that point, the tumor is probably in Stage III. Therefore, treatment options are limited. That’s especially true since many mesothelioma victims are in their 70s or 80s. Older individuals cannot tolerate aggressive cancer treatments.
Cervical cancer might be the worst, and most common, secondary asbestos exposure illness. Asbestos mineral deposits are often intermingled with talc mineral deposits. Johnson & Johnson failed to filter asbestos particles out of raw talc. As mentioned, asbestos fibers are very small and the detection/removal process was, in the company’s opinion, not cost effective.
As a result, hundreds of thousands of women unintentionally rubbed asbestos on their bodies every morning. These particles migrated through the fallopian tubes and into the cervix. This form of cancer has a very low survival rate.
Industrial asbestos was deeply embedded in the supply chain for so many years. Most Americans live in asbestos-laced houses. The use of talc-asbestos was equally widespread. Talc is a common ingredient in not only talcum powder, but also chalk, makeup, prescription medicine, and chewing gum.
Secondary Occupational
These victims are usually secondary industrial asbestos exposure victims. Naval asbestos use illustrates this process.
Shipbuilders handled significant amounts of asbestos, because the Navy wanted its ships lined with asbestos from stern to bow, in order to reduce onboard fire risk.
Other workers at shipbuilding facilities, like managers and secretaries, never touched an asbestos-laced product. But these fibers floated into parking lots, cafeterias, and other common areas, where they infected these workers.
The process repeats once someone smashed a bottle of champagne on the bow and the vessel traveled to a navy base. Sailors risked direct exposure. Movie tough guy Steve McQueen scraped asbestos off pipes while he was in the Navy. Mesothelioma killed him before his 60th birthday. Support personnel who rarely set foot aboard ship were also at risk, for the reasons mentioned above.
Direct Ambient
For many years, take-home asbestos exposure victims dominated this category. Tiny asbestos fibers have clingy spikes. These fibers settled onto workers’ clothes, these workers unknowingly carried these fibers home, and their wives unknowingly handled asbestos-laced products (their husbands’ dirty shirts).
Traditionally, this category was severely undercounted. Mostly because the asbestos cover up was in full swing during the industrial use period, many housewives who contracted mesothelioma or other forms of asbestos-exposure cancer, such as stomach cancer, never connected the dots.
Now, the industrial use period is over, but the direct ambient risk continues, mostly for talc users. Since this mineral is a softening agent in so many consumer products, as mentioned above, we’re all talc users.
Indirect Ambient
Currently, this category is extremely small. In the past, small incidents, like warehouse fires that released asbestos particles into the air, infected some people. By around 2050, that’s likely to change.
When the World Trade Center towers collapsed on 9/11, a dust cloud laced with asbestos and other toxic particles drifted across much of the Northeast. These cases pose a special challenge for asbestos exposure lawyers. Government benefits are available, but only if the victim was in lower Manhattan on or immediately after 9/11. Indirect ambient exposure victims outside this zone must find another way to obtain compensation for their serious injuries.
This “other way” may be a legal action against the WTC’s owners or one of the companies that furnished asbestos-laced products during their construction.
In most states, property owners have a duty of care to provide safe and secure environments for invited guests. Secondary asbestos exposure victims weren’t invited guests. Nevertheless, a remedy based on the property owner’s duty of care may still be available.
Likewise, companies have a duty to warn end users about all known side effects. Asbestos companies clearly dropped the ball in this area. Because of this duty of care, and because of the long-term illness coverup, substantial compensation, including punitive damages, is usually available in these cases.
Civil actions are notoriously long and complex. Those seeking a quicker and easier path to compensation may consider Social Security Disability or, if available, a bankruptcy victim compensation fund claim.
Cause is basically irrelevant in an SSD claim. Benefits are available if the applicant cannot work because of a disabling illness. The Social Security Administration usually only considers medical evidence during initial SSD reviews. At a subsequent appeal, an asbestos exposure lawyer introduces non-medical evidence, such as a vocational expert’s report, to make a stronger case that the applicant’s disability precludes employment.
Bankruptcy VCF claims are similar in many ways. If the asbestos provider declared bankruptcy and contributed to a VCF, the victim may be eligible for a large piece of that pie. These applicants must establish cause, but since there’s no opposing lawyer, a bare-bones case is sufficient.