Two couples have filed lawsuits against more than 150 companies in West Virginia’s Kanawha Circuit court for a number of causes relating to negligent asbestos exposure. Robert L. Wood of Wheeling, West Virginia, and John D. Kontra Sr. of Glendale, Arizona and their respective wives filed the lawsuits separately in the belief that their exposure to asbestos fibers in their workplaces contributed to their current health. Both men are cancer patients.
Together, the lawsuits implicate a wide range of companies including such well known enterprises as General Electric Company, Ford Motor Company, 3M Company, and Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Local news sources claim that the men and their wives are suing the companies for “negligence, contaminated buildings, breach of expressed/implied warranty, strict liability, intentional tort, conspiracy, misrepresentations and post-sale duty to warn”.
Asbestos was used eagerly throughout much of the twentieth century as a building material and insulator. Due to the substance’s abundance, incredible heat resistance and non-conductive property it was incorporated into a wide variety of fabrication and manufacturing industries as early as the first World War. While medical studies began to show asbestos’s potential hazards as early as the 1930’s, restrictions on the use of the substance in the workplace did not begin in earnest until more than thirty years later. Today, as mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases are diagnosed more and more frequently, federal and state laws restricting the mineral’s use and promoting its safe handling are becoming more commonplace.
Exposure to asbestos fibers has been linked with the development of various types of diseases, and most specifically with mesothelioma. Microscopic asbestos fibers are too small for the human body to properly dispose of through normal mechanisms. When the fibers are inhaled or ingested they can pass easily through the lung or intestinal walls and become lodged in the mesothelium, a soft tissue that lines many of our body’s vital organs. The fibers cause a scarring reaction in the mesothelium which, over time, can develop into malignant tumors. The length of time between asbestos exposure and development of mesothelioma can vary greatly, but often takes several decades. This latency period means that many employees who were negligently exposed to asbestos fibers in the middle and late twentieth century are just now suffering the consequences.
Both Mr. Kontra and Mr. Wood admit to a history of smoking, a practice which is known to contribute to many types of cancer and specifically to aggravate and advance mesothelioma.
