An Alameda County jury found USX Corporation, successor corporation to Western Pipe & Steel shipyard, liable for mesothelioma that arose after childhood household exposure to asbestos. (Jeanette Franklin v. USX Corporation, Alameda County Superior Court No. 816407-0

Attorneys at Kazan Law made U.S. asbestos litigation history in 2000 with a verdict of $6,500,000 in an asbestos cancer case that arose after childhood household exposure to asbestos. The amount of the award was believed to be the highest jury verdict in an individual asbestos case in Northern California’s courts at the time.

Jeanette Franklin, the plaintiff, was a little girl in the 1940s when both of her parents worked at USX Corporation’s Western Pipe & Steel shipyard in South San Francisco. Her father was a burner (welder) and her mother a ship’s carpenter’s assistant. Her parents unknowingly carried deadly asbestos fibers home on their clothing, and their young children were exposed.

In March 1999, Jeanette Franklin was diagnosed with mesothelioma, an asbestos-caused cancer, and on August 25, 1999, Kazan Law filed suit on her behalf. By February 2000, the case was settled with almost all of the defendants except USX Corporation. USX is the successor corporation to Western Pipe & Steel shipyard, and refused to offer even $1. The case was tried to an Alameda County, California, jury by former Kazan Law principal Simona Farrise and associate Andrea Huston.