New Orleans, Louisiana – A Greenville (MS) woman has filed a suit against numerous companies over claims that they contributed substantially to her exposure to asbestos and consequent development of malignant mesothelioma, a fatal form of cancer which affects the mesothelium.
The suit was filed by Elizabeth G Sutherland in Orleans Parish Central Dist. Court on 11th March. Some of the companies named as defendants in this case include: Alma Plantation LLC; Anco Insulation Incorporated; Arrowood Indemnity Co; Eagle Incorporated; Liberty Mutual Insurance Co; Metropolitan Life Insurance Co; Taylor-Seidenbach Incorporated; and the McCarty Corp.
Sutherland claims that her husband’s job for the defendant companies caused her to inhale toxic asbestos fibers while handling his work clothes. As a result, she developed mesothelioma, the suit states.
The defendant companies are accused of fraudulent concealment. The plaintiff says the companies were well aware of the hazardous nature of asbestos and consequences of exposure to the mineral. However, they failed to warn her husband as well as other workers regarding the risks involved in their job, Sutherland alleges. The companies are also accused of: failure to provide the plaintiff’s husband with enough safety equipment; failure to set up general ventilation in the work areas for providing a harmless working environment; and failure to warn the workers that asbestos fibers and dust may possibly be carried on their work clothes and could potentially expose their family members to the cancer-causing substance. Sutherland blames the companies for manufacturing and distributing products containing asbestos.
Direct exposure to asbestos dust and fibers has been identified as a severe health hazard for long. Recently, the medical community has started realizing that those who didn’t deal directly with the dangerous mineral could also develop asbestos-related diseases such as lung cancer and malignant mesothelioma.
Secondhand asbestos exposure takes place among those who haven’t been exposed to asbestos fibers directly. Such cases most generally involve wives or children who breathed in asbestos fibres which were carried home through the work clothes of someone who have direct everyday contact with the dangerous mineral, such as their spouse, father, brother or grandfather.
In her lawsuit, Sutherland is asking for an unspecified sum in damages for her physical pain and sufferings, medical costs and rehabilitation, physical disability and loss of earnings.
A New Orleans (LA)-based law firm is representing Sutherland in her fight for justice.
Hon. Paulette R Irons, the Division M judge of the Orleans Parish Civil Dist. Court in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, will be presiding over this case.
