News tagged with 'Asbestos'

At a "fairness hearing" in New York City Wednesday, a federal judge approved a settlement between the city and first responders that would end their seven-year legal battle over the ill health effects from the World Trade Center collapse.

Ron Motley is receiving the AAJ's 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award next month in Vancouver. The IB partner and head of Motley Rice revealed some of his motivations in a Frontline interview.

The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that a public health emergency exists at the Libby asbestos site in Montana. This is the first time the agency has made a determination under the Superfund law, which governs sites contaminated or threatened by hazardous substances.

It may be the most significant criminal prosecution ever brought against a corporate polluter. The town of Libby, Montana is finally having its day in court. Town residents claim that the vermiculite mining operation, W.R. Grace, withheld information about the dangers of asbestos that blanketed the entire town with a fine dust.  More than 1,200 died or developed lung disease from asbestos fibers. 

Prominent lawyer, Fred Baron, after initially being turned down, will now receive a drug that is experimental and in clinical trials. He is fighting multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma cells. Other families wanting experimental drugs are watching this case.  

A New York jury awarded $47 million Wednesday to a 54-year-old boilermaker who suffers from a severe form of cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. Plaintiff Robert Crouteau worked as a contractor for two New York utility companies, Consolidated Edison Inc. and KeySpan Corp. unit Long Island Lighting Co. (LILCO), unti

A California jury recently awarded $11.5 million to a woman who developed a rare lung cancer from washing her husband's asbestos-riddled work clothing. In October 2001, Genevieve Gunderson, 75, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an incurable cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. From 1948 to 1963, Gunderson's ex-husba

The family of a Missouri woman who died of mesothelioma due to asbestos exposure as a child was awarded $5.1 million by a St. Louis jury. Plaintiff attorneys argued that Stephanie Foster, who died in March 2001 at the age of 42, was exposed to deadly asbestos fibers as a toddler due to her father's occupation with Aer

A West Virginia jury has ruled that the remaining defendant in an asbestos lawsuit involving more than 2,000 plaintiffs is liable for injuries caused by exposure to the toxic substance. In their suit, the plaintiffs alleged that Dow Chemical Co.'s Union Carbide unit's products and facilities caused serious asbestos re

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal Monday made by several companies named in a West Virginia asbestos lawsuit involving 8,000 plaintiffs. Well-known defendants Exxon Mobil and Honeywell International argued to the high court that the lawsuit should be dismissed because the consolidated cases are too unrelated.

Honeywell International announced this week that the company has reached out-of-court settlements with plaintiffs in a West Virginia asbestos lawsuit involving 259 defendants. A spokesperson for the company would not comment on the claims, only that all had been settled or dismissed. The trial, involving over 8,

An asbestos trial involving over 8,000 plaintiffs and 259 defendants is scheduled to begin this week in West Virginia despite the fact that the case is being contested in the United States Supreme Court. The lawsuit's defendants, which include ExxonMobil and Honeywell International, have been seeking the suit's dismis

Paper and packaging corporation MeadWestvaco announced last week that hundreds of asbestos-related personal injury lawsuits have been filed against the company. More than 500 suits, filed by 6,000 plaintiffs, allege that an asbestos-containing friction paper--made by Mead Corp. decades before its January merger with W

In one of the largest asbestos litigation settlements ever agreed to by an insurer, St. Paul Companies will pay out nearly $1 billion to compensate victims of asbestos exposure caused by products installed or distributed by the manufacturing company Western MacArthur. USF&G, which became a subsidiary of St. Paul in 19

Petroleum and energy provider Halliburton Company announced Tuesday that it has settled 30 lawsuits stemming from toxic asbestos exposure. According to the complaints, the company and its subsidiaries made construction products with the material, which led to the plaintiffs' lung cancers. The terms of the settlements