Mesothelioma Lawyers Blog

Boston mesothelioma lawyers know that this disease is devastating.

Families are shattered when lives are abruptly ended – in most cases the victims those who had no idea that years before they had been exposed to asbestos, the primary root cause of the deadly mesothelioma cancer.

Now in civil court, these relatives have been known to sue the companies responsible when they suffered second-hand exposure. That is, their loved one came home from work with the asbestos fibers covering their clothing. When their family members hugged them or washed their laundry, they too became exposed.

However, it is this devastating loss of a loved one that is at the center of Sherrell VAnhooser v. Hennessy Industries Inc.
, heard in the 2nd District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles, California. Although it’s out-of-state, this case deals with issues that are relevant to family members of mesothelioma sufferers in Boston. At issue is something called loss of consortium. This is simply legalese for saying that you were deprived of the benefits of a family relationship due to injuries caused by the defendant.

In this case, the primary issue was whether a mesothelioma victim’s wife could sue for loss of consortium, even though the pair had not married until after the husband had been exposed.

The company had argued that the two would have had to have been married at the time of his exposure in order for her to sue for these damages. As you are probably aware, mesothelioma lies latent in one’s system for years – usually decades. So a person who was exposed to asbestos back in the 1960s may only just now be learning of their illness. Once it is diagnosed, the mesothelioma has reached such a point that is deadly within about a year.

So of course the company would want to minimize the damages it would have to pay by limiting the group of individuals who could sue them for loss of consortium.

However, the three-judge panel in the California appellate court ruled that the soon-to-be-widow in this case could in fact move forward on her claim to damages for loss of consortium. This sets a precedent that is encouraging in future case law, not only in California but across the country. In fact, the appellate court expressly stated that this was a recurring issue in a number of asbestos cases awaiting trial.

In this case, the husband served during the 1960s and 1970s in the U.S. Navy and then until 1990 as an auto mechanic – in both occupations, suffering from asbestos exposure from products made by Hennessy. The last time he reportedly had an encounter with these products was sometime between 1988 and 1990.

He then married his wife in late December 1991. His symptoms of mesothelioma did not begin to show up until late 2010. He was officially diagnosed with the disease in June of last year.

He has since sued numerous companies – Hennessy included – for his illness. With regard to the issue of loss of consortium, however, the company argued that the date of discovery and diagnosis of illness are irrelevant. What is important, they contended, was the date of exposure.

Not so, the appellate court decided, saying specifically:

“For purposes of creation of a loss of consortium cause of action, injury to a spouse in the latent disease context occurs when the illness or its symptoms are discovered or diagnosed, not at the time of the tortious act causing the harm.”
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Men who worked as diesel mechanics in New England prior to the 1980s may be doubly at risk for developing mesothelioma, according to research that indicates diesel fuel contains a carcinogen that can be nearly as dangerous as asbestos exposure.

New England mesothelioma lawyers understand that for diesel mechanics, the risk was then two-fold. Many would have been exposed to asbestos dust and fibers while on the job, breathing in the toxic compound. In many cases, those fibers also clung to their clothing, which they then wore home and unknowingly exposed their families. But now, it appears that diesel fumes, too, put them at risk.

Now for years, International Agency for Research on Cancer (also known as the IARC, a subsidiary of the World Health Organization), has maintained that diesel fuel was a likely carcinogen, meaning a compound that causes cancer. However, there had never been any definitive research indicating this was true.

However, new studies were recently published by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the National Cancer Institute that both looked at more than 12,000 cave workers. These studies are known as the Diesel Exhaust in Miners Study, or DEMS.

What those researchers discovered was there was a marked increase in lung cancer rates for workers who were exposed to underground diesel exhaust. In fact, those who had more exposure were more likely to die of lung cancer. In one study, researchers found the workers who suffered the highest exposure were three times as likely to die of cancer, while the other study found they were five times as likely.

Those within the mining industry say this research won’t hold any weight with regard to current practices, as the numbers examine worker exposure from the 1950s through the 1990s. During that time, workers often used dirtier and older equipment. Advances in technology, representatives said, mean mineworkers are no longer exposed to the same toxins, and since 2008, the Mine Safety and Health Administration has enforced rules on maximum exposure per worker.

And advances in working conditions have also improved for auto mechanics. However, that does nothing for those who were likely exposed to the cancer-causing compounds years ago. Given the long incubation period of mesothelioma – it is almost always decades before the cancer is diagnosed and is soon fatal upon discovery – we’re going to continue seeing mechanics who were exposed years ago just now becoming sickened.

While the National Resources Defense Council, as well as the Diesel Technology Forum both estimate that diesel emissions have been chopped by nearly 99 percent in newly-manufactured engines, there are still many, many older engines that are still in use – particularly in developing countries.

The studies didn’t indicate an exact level at which the diesel fumes are harmful, but scientists suggest that the risks shoot up even when there is moderate exposure.

Researchers also expressly stated that while their studies focused on mine workers, the risk is not limited to them. In fact the next group that is more likely at risk are the heavily-exposed occupational groups (such as diesel mechanics) followed by the general population.
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Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers write a lot about people who were exposed to this deadly disease by way of their employer.

A lot of times these were individuals who worked in shipyards, military service, factories, construction or some other job where airborne asbestos was a common threat.

Something we haven’t discussed at great length, however, is non-work-related exposure, and in particular, the peritoneal mesothelioma that often results from this type of contact with the carcinogen.

Peritoneal mesothelioma accounts for roughly 10 percent of mesothelioma cases that are caused by workplace asbestos exposure. However, nearly 50 percent of all peritoneal mesothelioma cases are the result of exposure that happened outside the workplace.

Pleural mesothelioma is what we often refer to as the cancer that attacks the thin lining of membrane around the lungs. It’s the most common kind, and it accounts for 70 percent of mesothelioma cases total.

But peritoneal mesothelioma, which is the second most-common form of the disease, attacks the lining of the stomach.

The latter, as this study noted, is more common in people who were exposed to asbestos someplace other than their work. Most commonly, this meant they lived in a building or home where there was asbestos used in the construction. In other cases, it means living with a family member whose work exposed them to asbestos. When that worker returned home, the asbestos covered their clothing, and was therefore ingested by their family members. So it’s second-hand exposure.

The effects, however, are just as deadly.

The Wake Forest study, conducted by Dr. Jill Ohar, alongside Dr. Edward Levine and a graduate student, analyzed the records and surveys obtained from nearly 400 mesothelioma patients, many of whom were going through civil litigation with regard to their illnesses as well.

The findings of this study are expected to be presented in Boston this September at the International Mesothelioma Interest Group Conference.

Researchers also found that with peritoneal mesothelioma, just as with pleural mesothelioma, the latency period is roughly 42 years. That’s the amount of time it took from the first exposure to diagnosis. Compare that to occupational exposure, where the latency period stands at about 49 years.

However, those with peritoneal mesothelioma do tend to live a bit longer – an average of 57 months after diagnosis, versus roughly 20 months after diagnosis for those with pleural mesothelioma.

Some of that difference, though, was attributed to the fact that those with peritoneal mesothelioma tend to be diagnosed earlier than those with pleural mesothelioma. In the former, the average age at diagnosis was about 51 years-old. With the latter, the patient was about 67 before they were diagnosed.

It’s estimated that nearly 30 million people in the U.S. were exposed to asbestos at work between the years of 1940 and 1979.

As part of ongoing research, the team at Wake Forest is continuing to collect DNA samples from mesothelioma patients. They’re aiming to collect this from 1,000 patients by the end of next year. They’ve just recently passed the 400-mark.
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According to a recent report from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, some 8,000 people in Britain who died from cancer had been sickened by some job-related factor – mostly having to do with exposure to asbestos.

Our Boston mesothelioma lawyers understand that this accounts for more than 5 percent of all cancer deaths in the United Kingdom.

Given the fact the industrialization of that country compared to our own is so similar, we can expect similar results with regard to mesothelioma in Boston and across the U.S.

While asbestos was mostly abandoned in most products in this country by the 1970s, it remains in older buildings and products. The incubation period for mesothelioma is quite long – decades. This means workers who were regularly exposed to the asbestos in their line of work in the 1950s through the 1980s are just now beginning to get sick.

When it comes to mesothelioma, the study found that men were more often impacted than women. With regard to overall cancers, men were more likely to die than women (8 percent versus 6 percent). But mesothelioma doesn’t discriminate – it’s always deadly, no matter who you are or in what capacity you were exposed.

Researchers have indicated that this 8,000 figure was actually a conservative estimate. There are likely more individuals sickened in the U.K. by mesothelioma, but it either wasn’t diagnosed properly or at all. Partially, this is because it causes a swift decline in the patients health. Most who are diagnosed pass away within a year or two.

The World Health Organization said it’s probably that one in every 10 cancers is work-related.

That’s in line with the estimates offered by The U.S. Centers for Disease Control, which indicate that an estimated 10 percent of all cancers are related to some form of occupational exposure.

What’s even more upsetting is that a number of these companies continued to use asbestos, the organic compound that causes mesothelioma, long after they knew it was dangerous. They knew their workers would get sick, and yet they continued to use it because it was cheaper and more effective for their own purposes.

And that’s why our Boston mesothelioma lawyers fight so hard in these cases. Our mesothelioma patients and their families deserve compensation for the fact that there is so much they will lose – all for the greed of a company to which they had remained loyal, many of them for decades.

Across the world, it’s estimated that about 1 million deaths are caused by workplace exposures to carcinogens.

And while safety measures have somewhat improved, this should be a reminder to employers to remain diligent in their efforts with regard to worker safety and asbestos removal.
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