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The Ammunition to Win Your Mesothelioma Lawsuit

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mesothelioma lawsuitWhether or not you win your mesothelioma lawsuit hinges on many factors. Because some are not in your control, it is crucial that you determine what is in your control and do your utmost to provide very best most thorough information you can in those areas. Your asbestos attorney should guide you in this. That is why it is so important to choose an experienced top quality law firm to handle your mesothelioma lawsuit and not just someone promoting themselves on a late night commercial.

Pennsylvania Mesothelioma Lawsuit Dismissed For Lack of Evidence

A Pennsylvania higher court recently threw out a widow’s mesothelioma lawsuit against several large companies because of speculative evidence. The widow was relying solely on one of her husband’s coworker’s memory of asbestos in the products at various sites where they worked as bricklayers. The courts ruled this was not enough.

I read about this case in Legal Newsline, a law newsletter. The article stated that the key witness was allowed to rely just on his own “knowledge and belief” that certain products contained asbestos. An appellate judge upheld a lower court decision that this was “speculative” and dismissed the case.

This decision is good news for the defendants General Electric Company, Georgia Pacific LLC, CBS Corporation-Westinghouse, Goulds Pumps, Inc., Zurn Industries and Trane US Inc. because now they do not have pay for the harm they allegedly caused Henry Krauss. Mr. Krauss died from mesothelioma, a cancer caused only by asbestos exposure. His widow Colleen Krauss brought the mesothelioma lawsuit.

The Evidence Needed to Win a Mesothelioma Lawsuit

In our firm’s 40 years of filing over 2,000 cases, winning multi-million dollar verdicts for our clients and pioneering precedent-setting asbestos litigation, we have developed expertise in mesothelioma lawsuits. We know the intricacies of asbestos litigation and what it takes to successfully take a case through the court system. Our team of experienced lawyers, paralegals and investigators track down company memos, reports and in a recent case, a 50 year-old product catalog to provide the evidence the courts require to successfully move a mesothelioma lawsuit forward. Learn more here about what information you need to prove asbestos exposure in a mesothelioma lawsuit.

Specific evidence is vital. It exists and can be found. Our case histories are proof. Lawyers with fancy ads but without adequate experience, staff and financial resources to invest in a case are less likely to do the work needed to find the evidence it takes to win. You only have one case – if you pick the best lawyer you have the best‎ chance to win.

Asbestos Bankruptcy Trust Funds Update

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I was honored to have been asked to give an oral presentation on changes in the U.S. asbestos bankruptcy trust fund system at the 2014 conference of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group (iMig) this week in Cape Town, South Africa.

This video will give you a basic understanding of asbestos bankruptcy trust funds and who is eligible to file a claim.

Mesothelioma Litigation, Hippocrates and BAP1 Genetic Testing

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In one of the three abstracts we are proud to be presenting at the International Mesothelioma Interest Group‘s (iMig 2014) conference in Cape Town, South Africa, Kazan Law associate Irena Kin worked with me on Mesothelioma Litigation, Hippocrates and BAP1 Genetic Testing.

Recent medical research has shown that there is a predisposition to mesothelioma in some individuals because of their genetics. Companies who are sued in mesothelioma lawsuits try to use this information as a defense. Kazan Law associate attorney Irena Kin discusses the importance for medical professionals hired by mesothelioma defense attorneys to understand and follow their ethical duties.

Asbestos Lawsuit Fraud Charges Stand Against Chemical Company

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asbestos lawsuitHere at Kazan Law, we’ve been known as an asbestos law firm for over 40 years. Our asbestos lawsuits often go to the California Supreme Court and help establish new legal precedents in asbestos litigation. But a rising tide, as the saying goes, lifts all boats. So it helps us as an asbestos law firm and our clients, when higher courts issue decisions in other states that thwart the attempts by major multinational corporations to get away with murder.

In a recent asbestos lawsuit decision reported in the Wall Street Journal and other media, a U.S. federal appeals court in Newark, New Jersey reinstated charges of fraud and fraud concealment not only against a major international chemical company but against the law firm who represented them.

A group of plaintiffs – representatives of alleged asbestos victims — claimed that the company and their attorneys at that time destroyed or hid evidence of asbestos-contaminated products in order to dodge liability.

The three judges on the appeals panel, reversed a decision by the US District Court in Newark, New Jersey and, in a unanimous ruling, said that although New Jersey’s litigation privilege often immunizes lawyers and clients from recrimination based on their statements in judicial proceedings, the privilege cannot be used to “shield systemic fraud directed at the integrity of the judicial process.”

In other words, the judges realized that the cruel deceptions in this case were not only ploys to get the chemical company off the hook for compensating those whose lives they destroyed but that these tactics threatened the very validity of our country’s judicial process itself.

The Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturned a lower court judge who dismissed a pending class action suit. The suit was brought against a division of BASF, a chemical company and their New York attorneys. BASF Corporation, headquartered in New Jersey, is the North American affiliate of BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF has nearly 17,000 employees in North America, and had sales of $19.3 billion in 2013, according to the company’s website.

A company bought by BASF in 1983 allegedly claimed that talc was a safe substitute for asbestos even though laboratory reports showed talc contained asbestos. After the company settled a suit from a worker exposed to asbestos-containing talc products, it attempted to avoid further suits by allegedly rounding up and destroying documents referring to the asbestos-contaminated talc, the complaint says. Their attorneys at that time reportedly developed a defense that included allegedly false affidavits and expert reports; tactics we have seen also attempted in European asbestos cases.

A daughter of a former BASF research chemist developed mesothelioma and died. In 2009 her father testified about the existence of data, analyses and reports confirming asbestos contamination. This information supposedly disappeared but has been found by BASF’s new attorneys in a storage facility owned by BASF’s former attorneys, according to the Wall Street Journal.

5 First Steps to Take When You Become a Family Trust Administrator

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family trust Becoming the family trust administrator is a big responsibility during a stressful time. We always hope for the best for all our clients who are suffering from mesothelioma. We hope that they are receiving excellent medical care and responding well to treatment. We want them to be able to enjoy with their families the financial awards we win for them in their lawsuits against those responsible for exposing them to asbestos.

But mesothelioma is a cruel disease. Tragically, sometimes a client with mesothelioma will pass away from the disease before or shortly after we win their case and obtain financial justice for them. Because these awards can and often do amount to millions of dollars, a family trust typically is formed to manage the money. In addition to coping with the stress of mesothelioma, a lawsuit and grief over the loss of a spouse or parent, the family member designated as the trust administrator has to take on this responsibility. Here are a few first things to do. It’s a lot. We know. We can help.

  1. Bring Estate Documents to Local Government Offices

Bring copies of:

  • the will
  • the trust agreement
  • the death certificate

to the county clerk office where you live and to any county clerk office where your loved one owned property. This will remove their name from the property tax rolls. You should receive a tax payer identification number for the trust.

  1. Locate and Update Assets

Part of your duty as a trustee is to manage all the estate’s assets. To do that, you have to find them first.

Look for:

  •  bank statements
  • deeds
  • stock certificates
  • life insurance policies.

Or you can wait for monthly statements in the mail or get a transcript of last year’s tax return from the IRS. For each bank and investment account, you will need to change the name on the account to yours so you can keep it active and make decisions to for the good of the trust.

  1. Bring Estate Documents to Banks and Brokerages

Before they do business with you,

  • banks
  • brokerage firms
  • other third parties involved with the trust’s assets

will need proof in writing that you are the trustee. Bring each of them copies of the original signed trust agreement and the death certificate.

  1. File claims for insurance, Veterans and Social Security benefits
  1. Notify, Notify, Notify

Ask the attorney who prepared the trust to give you a summary. This will suffice for notification purposes. In addition to banks, brokerages, insurance companies and Social Security, notify;

    • Phone services and utilities
    • Credit card issuers
    • The post office (have mail forwarded to you if the address is different so you will receive bills, checks and other mail)
    • Medical care providers

Judge Decides Asbestos Lawsuit Should Go to Trial

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asbestos lawsuitAn old laboratory parts catalog provided an Alameda County Superior Court judge with sufficient evidence to enable Kazan Law clients James and Louise Leonard to take a step towards justice with their asbestos lawsuit.

Judge Jo-Lynne Q. Lee decided that their case Leonard v. Avantor Performance Materials, Inc., et al., (Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG13684263) could move forward to trial. The Leonards were represented by asbestos attorneys Ted Pelletier and Autumn Mesa.

James Leonard, now 71, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in May 2013.  He had worked as an operator in Dow Chemical’s research department from the early 1960s to the 1970s. There he built and operated laboratory tests that investigated whether new products were ready for mass production.

Mr. Leonard’s exposure to asbestos began half a century ago and continued for nearly 10 years during his work in test labs where he wrapped glass lab equipment with asbestos and then later scraped the asbestos from the lab’s glassware.  This asbestos wrap and other asbestos lab products were supplied by research laboratory product distributor VWR, along with other asbestos lab products.

At his deposition, defendants’ lawyers asked Mr. Leonard to identify the brand, manufacturer and supplier of the equipment and asbestos materials he used during the 1960s and early 1970s when he worked in labs. He couldn’t do it and said he could probably provide the information if he was shown a catalog.  But the defense lawyers did not show him a catalog.

VWR asked the court to throw out the asbestos lawsuit because Mr. Leonard did not have and could not obtain sufficient evidence necessary for trial.  But the judge agreed with us that defendants’ failure to show Mr. Leonard catalogs at deposition coupled with his later identification of asbestos products from VWR catalogs demonstrates that there is sufficient evidence for the case to be tried in court.

We applaud Judge Lee’s understanding that the public‘s safety is a serious matter that should not depend on a lawyer’s game of “Gotcha!” Manufacturers and distributors of dangerous products need to be held accountable for harming people even when those harmed cannot recall from memory all the 50 year-old details about each product.

Proving Previous Employers In An Asbestos Lawsuit

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asbestos lawsuitOne of the most important pieces of proof needed for a successful asbestos lawsuit is proof that you worked in a place where you were exposed to asbestos.

If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, it is absolutely because you were exposed to asbestos. Asbestos causes mesothelioma. It starts when asbestos fibers, so tiny they cannot be seen by the human eye, become airborne and get inhaled into the lungs. Construction and maintenance workers are all at increased risk because of asbestos lurking in building materials, especially older buildings. Auto repair and parts workers are similarly at risk from asbestos used in brake linings and brake pads.

But once asbestos fibers settle into the lungs and begin to cause damage, it can take years – decades, even – for the damage to make itself known through mesothelioma symptoms.

By the time you receive a mesothelioma diagnosis, it may be years since you worked for the company responsible for causing your disease. But to launch a successful asbestos lawsuit you are going to need to show solid proof that you in fact worked there.

How do you do that? In other circumstances, you might go to the IRS website to get transcripts of your tax returns. But the IRS only keeps returns for seven years. And the asbestos exposure that caused your mesothelioma probably goes back longer than that.

If you didn’t keep copies of your old W2 forms and/or tax returns – and why would you, you weren’t expecting to get mesothelioma – your best bet is the Social Security Administration. From their website, you can:

  • create an online account to access and print your employment history
  • locate the nearest Social Security Administration office to get in-person help
  • find their 800 number but we’ll give it to you here (warning – it’s a government agency so it’ll take patience to get through to an actual human) 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778)

Or you can contact our office. We have years of experience doing this and would be happy to help you retrieve this important information for your asbestos lawsuit.

Why Every Mesothelioma Patient Needs Two Power of Attorney Documents

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mesothelioma patientYou may be a mesothelioma patient but in the eyes of the law you are still an independent adult. And that’s a good thing. But it has its downsides.

What if you are not feeling well – which your medical treatment as a mesothelioma patient makes very likely — and you need a prescription picked up from the pharmacy? Or test results from a lab? Because of well-intended federal rules to protect patient privacy, even your spouse or adult offspring will not be able to get these for you. Unless you have a signed durable power of attorney for health care matters authorizing them to do so.

Or what if you need to have an IRA or savings CD cashed out to help pay for your medical expenses? And you are unable to go to the bank to sign all the papers? Someone you trust can do it for you if you have given them power of attorney for your finances.

A power of attorney is a legal document that gives someone you choose the power to act on your behalf. In case you become mentally incapacitated, you’ll need what are known as “durable” powers of attorney for medical care and finances. A durable power of attorney simply means that the document stays in effect if you become incapacitated and unable to handle matters on your own.

You need separate durable power of attorney documents for health care and your finances. It is important to keep copies (keep the original in a safe deposit box or with your attorney) of both of these handy because every pharmacy, doctor’s office and financial institution will want a copy on file before they will interact with your designated representative. Every receptionist or hospital technician will want to know whether your spouse or son or daughter is the “P.O.A.” (the abbreviation for “power of attorney”) before they will give them information they need for your care and well-being.

Do not delay on getting these documents in place. Without them, if you become too ill to take care of your health and finances, your family will have to go through expensive and lengthy court proceedings just to be able to take care of you.

Even though you should make separate power of attorney documents for health care and finances, it makes sense to name the same agent under both documents. Just make sure that the person you choose understands the responsibility for your care that they are agreeing to and will be able to be present when needed to act. Your life depends on it.

How Much Money Can You Receive From an Asbestos Lawsuit?

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asbestos lawsuitNobody initiates a lawsuit unless they think they will obtain some money from it and an asbestos lawsuit is no different. In fact, because of the irrevocable harm done to you from wrongful asbestos exposure and the devastating consequences of developing an asbestos-caused illness like mesothelioma, the stakes in an asbestos lawsuit can be higher than most.

Standard of proof
Asbestos lawsuits are civil cases not criminal cases even though you may feel that what was done to you was criminal. In most civil cases, as described in a California courts website, the judge or jury has to make a decision about which side wins based on a standard called “preponderance of the evidence.” This means that, if the case is decided in your favor, your side of the story is more likely true than not. It does not mean that one side brought in more evidence than the other side. It means that one side’s evidence was more believable than the other’s.

In some cases, the standard for reaching a decision is “clear and convincing evidence.” This means that, for the decision to be made in your favor, you have to prove that your version of the facts is highly probably or reasonably certain, or “substantially more likely than not.”

How large a settlement or judgment can you expect to be awarded?

How much money you might be awarded in an asbestos lawsuit depends on many factors, such as the medical evidence that confirms your diagnosis, how seriously you have been injured, your actual and potential losses, the identification of the asbestos products that you were exposed to, the companies that made these products, and their financial resources. With all the variables, it is impossible to answer this question with specific amounts without knowing more about your potential claim, and you should be suspicious of any lawyer who tells you “how much” on your first meeting.

I can’t speak for other mesothelioma law firms but at Kazan Law, we do not take a case unless we believe the facts are strongly in your favor. Because of our strong track record, most of our cases get settled entirely out of court.

We keep our clients’ settlement amounts confidential to protect their privacy. Defendants who pay our clients prefer confidentiality because if word got out other plaintiff lawyers would try to get as much as we do and then the defendants would not have as much cash with which to pay our next client!

Verdicts are a matter of public record. In recent years, several of our clients have received significant verdict awards ranging from about $5 million to $27 million. For specific amounts on trial verdicts and appellate decisions you can refer to our website.

Asbestos Victim Wins a Landmark Case

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asbestos victimAsbestos victim Robert Alan Speake was “in frail health and breathing with difficulty,” according to the December 1, 1981 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.   But he stood up for his day in court, a day that marked a major change in the tragic history of asbestos victims and the businesses and individuals who exploited their innocence for financial gain.

As ill as he was on that day, Speake stood up on behalf of not only himself but all asbestos victims. And standing with him there in Contra Costa County Superior Court on that day was me. I would go on to fight on behalf of asbestos victims for the next several decades – a fight I continue to this day. But on that day in 1981, we were breaking new legal ground.

I was helping to represent Speake in his lawsuit against the giant Johns-Manville Corp. family of companies which he blamed for his fatal illness.

Speake , 66 at the time, was an asbestos worker for 33 years at Johns-Manville’s Pittsburg plant. We maintained that the executives knew of the health hazards of working with asbestos as early as the 1930s but hid the information from their employees. Bob said they never told him anything and I believed him.

Speake, who had to take early retirement because of his declining health, was suffering from asbestosis, a disease of the lungs, caused by his work environment. Johns-Manville’s lawyers tried to blame the victim and claimed his illness was caused by smoking.

I didn’t buy that. The article quotes me as saying that Johns-Manville acted in “willful and conscious disregard” by never telling workers of the dangers.

“Bob Speake should have had the opportunity to say, I’m going to get out of here and get a safe job, before his health began to deteriorate,” I told the court.

I showed evidence revealing that the company had kept secret the results of X-rays and exams showing signs of asbestos-caused damage in Speake as early as the 1950s.

I sought not only lost pay for Speake, but also substantial punitive damages to make an example of Johns-Manville so others would be spared the fate that was Bob Speake’s.

We succeeded in making an example of Johns-Manville. Their name came to be synonymous with the scandal of asbestos exposure and callous disregard for human life. They went into bankruptcy several months later, right before our next group of mesothelioma lawsuits for their plant workers was set for trial. But we did not succeed in sparing others from Bob Speake’s fate. Greed never learns its lesson. And so we continue to fight on behalf of asbestos victims.

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