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Jury Awards $7 Million in Asbestos Case
March 14, 2008

A former singer/actress and her husband have been awarded a sum of $7 million by a San Francisco jury as compensation for the health risks and injuries they suffered as a result of the exposure to asbestos in their home remodeling business.

The settlement is to be paid by Georgia Pacific Corp., the only defendant in the trial, an asbestos manufacturer. The Superior Court jury assigned the amount at $20 million, and 30 percent was attributed to the defendant, as the couple had already settled with other asbestos manufacturers. It is said to be one of the largest asbestos settlements in the country.

The woman, Joan Mahoney, is 69 years old and suffers from mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that's painful and debilitating and is most closely associated with asbestos exposure. She is said to be constantly ill from the disease while also caring for her husband of 42 years who suffered a stroke last year.

Joan Mahoney is a one-time actress who also had a singing career that spanned several decades. As a singer she toured the world at least seven times, before she and her husband got into the home remodeling business in the seventies. Over the next three decades, Joan and Daniel Mahoney remodeled more than 200 homes. It was to change their lives in a way they never imagined. Among the material they used was a joint asbestos compound that, unknown to them, was capable of causing cancer of the lungs. In 2006 Joan Mahoney was diagnosed with mesothelioma.

The lawsuit alleged that Georgia Pacific was aware at the time that asbestos has very serious cancer causing properties, but decided to go ahead with production and distribution anyway. Further, the lawsuit alleged that the company took advantage of the fact that other manufacturers had stopped the use of asbestos in their products. When the government finally banned specific uses of the compound in 1977, the company finally stopped production of the joint asbestos compound. By then the effects of asbestos were becoming painfully clear to the public. The Consumer Product Safety Commission issued a statement saying that working with asbestos for just six hours a day four times a year was enough to cause lung cancer or mesothelioma in thousands of people.

In effect, people who were exposed to asbestos for longer than 24 hours in a year had high chances of developing the disease. The Mahoney's were exposed to far greater levels of asbestos, as they worked for many years with asbestos compounds in their remodeling business.

For those who think legal settlements for mesothelioma are going through the roof, a little background on mesothelioma is called for. This is a hard to diagnose form of cancer because its symptoms are easily confused with other lung diseases. It's almost exclusively restricted to people who have inhaled asbestos particles. When the person inhales these particles after exposure, they settle on the lining of the lungs or the pleura, which is why this disease is also known as pleural mesothelioma. There, the particles harden, causing the lining of the lungs to harden with time. This hardened lining makes it difficult for the person to breathe. That inhaling and exhaling motion that we take for granted becomes acutely difficult for people suffering from the disease, because the lining of the lungs is stiff and hardened. That's what mesothelioma does to healthy persons, who have no other history of illness. Their only fault is that they were unlucky enough to be around asbestos compounds manufactured by greedy corporations.

Settlements like this are not only called for, but should be passed out more often.

If you or a loved-one has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, you need the help of an experienced California personal injury lawyer to defend your rights. Contact an attorney at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

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