Asbestos and Mesothelioma at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company in KY (Podcast)

In this insightful podcast episode, John Maher speaks with Paul Kelley from the Kentucky personal injury law firm Satterley & Kelley. They discuss the historical asbestos exposure at the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s facility in Madisonville, Kentucky, highlighting the serious health implications for employees. Paul details how the plant’s operations led to widespread asbestos exposure, affecting not just direct workers but also office staff and family members at home. They also discuss the importance of timely legal action for those diagnosed with mesothelioma.

John Maher: Hi. I’m John Maher, and I’m here today with Paul Kelley. Paul is a partner with the Kentucky personal injury law firm, Satterley & Kelley, which has over 45 years of collective experience in litigating mesothelioma and asbestos glands. Today we’re talking about the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Welcome, Paul.

Paul Kelley: Hey, John. How are you doing today?

John: I’m doing well. How are you?

Paul: Doing fantastic. It’s a beautiful day in Louisville today.

About Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Kentucky

John: That’s great. So Paul, tell me a little bit about the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company and their presence in Kentucky where they’re located.

Paul: Of course, everybody’s heard of Goodyear. Been in operation, gosh, probably since the late 1800s at least. This particular facility located in Madisonville, Kentucky was built in 1967, and it operated, I believe until the ’90s. It actually started off, interestingly enough, it didn’t make tires there. It made rubber soles for shoes, and they did that for about five years.

Then I guess Goodyear decided that its bread and butter was tires, and so it decided to convert the plant to a tire manufacturing facility in 1972. Then it operated that until sometime in the ’90s when the plant completely closed down. For a lot of those years, they had additions on in the plant. Of course, when they went from, as you can imagine, the equipment necessary to manufacture shoe products versus tire products was a lot different, so when they retrofitted that facility in 1972, I mean, it was basically like building a new plant.

Understanding Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company’s Involvement in Asbestos and Mesothelioma Claims

John: Then how was the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company involved in asbestos and mesothelioma claims?

Paul: So, it turns out that that Goodyear plant has been recognized as being one of the worst facilities in the United States containing asbestos. I know that sounds odd to say because the Lord knows there’s a million places in the United States containing asbestos, but this plant, all the tire presses, the tire making process, it’s not terribly important for what we’re talking about today, but it’s a very sophisticated process.

Ultimately, rubber is ran through or made running through machines with all the various ingredients that goes into making the rubber. Then once the rubber is made, it goes over into other areas, these tire presses where the tires are ultimately made. All those tire presses are operated or were operated with steam, and that means that there were tons of steam pipes that were connected to these tire presses. All those steam pipes were wrapped in asbestos.

Of course, those steam pipes came from somewhere, and there was miles and miles and miles of steam lines that were located in the plant. That steam in part heated the facility and in part ran to all these tire presses that were located in the plant, and every one of them was wrapped with asbestos. We know that when they retrofitted the facility in 1972 to put these tire presses in, all of the steam lines at that point were insulated with some form of asbestos insulation. One of the documents that we received indicated that as much as maybe 35% of the plant contained asbestos. However, we took a deposition of a Goodyear representative who said he thinks that 35% of the facility insulated with asbestos was on the low end. He thinks it probably was higher than that.

We know that it contained asbestos definitively. Not only does it Goodyear admit it, but between 1987 and 1992, they removed a lot of it. They shut the plant down in order to do something else with it. They needed to remove the asbestos-containing products that were there, so they removed a lot of it. I mean, thousands of square feet, thousands of linear feet of asbestos insulation was removed from the plant.

Then later on, as I alluded to a minute ago, in 2014, there was some more work being done at the plant. The building still exists today, and the EPA shut it down because there was so much asbestos there. Goodyear didn’t own it then, so I’m not saying Goodyear anything to do with it, but whoever was tearing it down, there was enough asbestos there that the EPA said, “You can’t just come in here and remove everything. You’ve got to spend the time and money and effort to do formal remediation.” The EPA actually labeled it a hot spot for asbestos. So that was in the ’90s, so you can only imagine what it was like in the ’60s and ’70s.

John: Yeah, because they had already gone through a process of removing some of the asbestos by then.

Paul: Absolutely. So 20 years later after they removed a bunch of it, it still was a hot spot for asbestos. Again, Goodyear didn’t have anything to do with it at that point, but Goodyear had everything to do with putting it there and had everything to do with all the people that were exposed in the ’60s through the early 1990s.

How were Goodyear Tire Employees Exposed to Asbestos

John: So, how and when were the employees of Goodyear Tire exposed to that asbestos and then ultimately contracted mesothelioma?

Paul: So, we’ve seen a few different types. We’ve seen insulators who did the insulation of the facility. That was usually outside contractors that worked for various insulating companies, but those insulating companies worked at the bequest of Goodyear and worked pursuant to specifications that Goodyear provided and put in what Goodyear wanted.

At a minimum, Goodyear knew what they were putting in. So, a lot of the insulators that insulated all of these steam lines, maintenance workers, people who ultimately worked on those steam lines, whether it was a “maintenance worker” or a pipe fitter. A lot of pipe fitters, of course, did piping work. Sometimes they’d have big projects where they needed to remove a whole section of piping or maybe they needed to work on a piece of equipment. Every time you disconnect the piping, you’ve got to take off all the insulation. Other crafts that were there during the construction of the plant.

It’s true that the insulators were doing the hands-on work, but other employees, other contractors, whether it was millwrights, a lot of electricians were still finalizing some of their work. Millwrights set a lot of the tire presses and equipment that was in the plant, and a lot of that work was going on, certainly when the insulation process was occurring. For those that don’t know anything about how asbestos insulation was applied, there was no way to do it. Well, there was a way, but if you didn’t try the safe procedures, there was no way to not produce a lot of dust.

Typically, insulation came in a certain length. Of course, the piping was always a different length than the insulation, so they would just take it out on the floor. They’d put it up on a table or some other piece of equipment, and they’d cut and saw it. Then they’d get it up on the pipe and they put it on the pipe.

Lots of times there were muds that also contained asbestos that were applied around the piping. The muds came frequently in a dry mix, so they’d just dump into five-gallon buckets from a bag. That dust flies everywhere. Then they put water in it, and when you hit it with the first douse of water, all the dust flies up. Then they mix it, and then sometimes they sanded that stuff, too. So, there was just a lot of different ways for people to be exposed, even if they weren’t the ones actually doing the work. Then as the years progress, the insulation deteriorates. Some of it is removed intermittently as needed. In other instances, they did more of a widespread remediation.

We know as we mentioned before, that they removed some in the ’80s, early ’90s. We know that somebody else came in and removed more in just, gosh, 10 years ago, 2014, but a lot of times plant workers, I mean just people that were making the tires, people who worked on the assembly lines or were participating in the mixing process, supervisors, plant managers, that insulation falls and hits the ground and hits equipment. The dust settles on equipment and the floor and products that are being made.

The problem with asbestos, and it doesn’t matter really how the dust is produced or when it’s produced, unless a real qualified contractor with industrial equipment, HEPA filter vacuum cleaners, unless they come in and do a thorough cleaning, once it’s there, it’s there. These plants are hot, and this plant was no exception. I mean, they’ve got fans running. Fans just push dust from one spot to the other. It just swirls around in the air. Lots of times people use compressed air for various activities. Sometimes they blow their clothes off. Sometimes they blow equipment off. That dust just moves from spot to spot.

My experience has been from the people that we’ve talked to, all the cases that we’ve had from that facility, that there really wasn’t anybody that worked there who was somehow immune from exposure to the dust there. They are just different levels. Some people were more heavily involved. Some people were not as significantly involved, but unfortunately, the science tells us that it doesn’t take a lot of exposure to asbestos to develop mesothelioma.

There are people that have a day of use and then they’re exposed, and certainly people who may have had what maybe OSHA might consider to be below permissible exposure levels, so the acceptable level. They’re still getting a substantial exposure to asbestos.

You’ll hear it maybe from my adversaries. Nobody’s ever said there’s a safe level of asbestos. You’ll hear about some of the permissible exposure levels and what OSHA said was acceptable. OSHA never really said it was acceptable. OSHA just lived with it because that’s what science and industry, that’s what they were capable of doing at the time, but if you worked in the plant, and insulation was swirling around in the air for 30 years, and you didn’t have anything to do with it, you still were receiving a substantial exposure that increased your risk of this cancer, certainly a lot more than people that didn’t work in that kind of environment. So, it really didn’t matter what you did. We’ve seen people from all different crafts and trades, and we’ve even seen the people who were supervisors, and they wore a shirt and tie every day. As it turns out, asbestos doesn’t care what you’re wearing.

Were Office Workers Exposed to Asbestos?

John: Right. I was going to say that even just the office workers or whatever, when you’re in a manufacturing plant like that, you don’t stay off the manufacturing floor for your entire time that you’re there. Even if you’re working in the office, you’re going and taking tours or you’re walking through the facility, so you’re getting that exposure even if you most of the time work out of an office.

Paul: Yeah. I mean, you didn’t work there very long if you stayed in your office all day. That’s certainly true. There was a famous doctor. His name was Irving Selikoff, and he blew the door open on the health risks associated with asbestos. It had been known for a long time, but by the ’60s and ’70s, we really started to see an epidemic of mesothelioma being diagnosed.

It was a lot of the insulators that were being diagnosed with this cancer at that time. The insulators by the ’60s and ’70s, they were the most heavily insulated or heavily exposed craft, but again, Dr. Selikoff started to see electricians, and he started to see pipe fitters, and then he started to see engineers. He started to see professionals who worked in a setting where asbestos was located, but they didn’t have anything to do with it. I’m paraphrasing because I’m not as eloquent as he was, but he said, “Asbestos has no respect for job classifications, that it will cause cancer in the engineer as easily as it will cause cancer in the insulator.”

That’s what we’ve seen historically. It’s true that if I went through all the hundreds of mesothelioma victims that we’ve represented, I’m sure that we would see a higher proportion of blue collar workers, but we certainly would see a surprisingly high percentage of people that never worked hands-on with the product or any sort of asbestos product and still develop cancer, but we find out that they worked in a place where there was a lot located there. Maybe even their spouse worked there, and they were exposed to their spouse’s contaminated clothing that they unknowingly brought home for decades from working at a place like Goodyear.

What Should You Do If You Worked At Goodyear And Have Been Diagnosed with Mesothelioma?

John: Right. So, if you were an employee of Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, or maybe like you said, a spouse or another family member, and now you have mesothelioma, what should you do next?

Paul: So, John, mesothelioma, it’s a terrible cancer. It’s almost always fatal. The survival statistics are just very, very poor. Most people are going to pass away within a couple of years of diagnosis, so it’s very important, of course, for people to work with their family and their doctor to develop a medical plan. There’s so many different treatments that are available now that weren’t available 20 years ago, and that’s a good thing.

People’s lives are being prolonged, but you’ve got a lot of decisions to make just from a medical standpoint. Do you want to stay in Kentucky? Do you want to go to places like Boston and New York and Texas, Chicago in order to get different kinds of treatments that aren’t available here? Then you have to decide whether those treatments are what you want to do. Obviously, your lawyers don’t have anything to do with that. That’s between you and your family.

Unfortunately, time just doesn’t stand still for you while you’re trying to figure out the best way to approach your medical care. You have limited time in Kentucky to pursue your mesothelioma case. I think it’s important to contact a lawyer as soon as possible. You have a lot of options that are out there in terms of people who do this work, but you need to investigate and determine who really does the work, and you need to determine whether the people, the lawyers you’re talking to, are they familiar with this state?

Are they familiar with this plant? Kentucky law is unique from, I’ll make it up, California law. This plant is unique. Just because there was another Goodyear plant in another part of the country doesn’t mean that it’s the same as this plant. We have a lot of experience with this plant. We’ve litigated a handful of cases, and you want to be in a situation where the lawyer you retain is prepared to go.

There’s always a certain level of investigation for every case. We want to make sure we get it right. More than likely, if you worked at this plant, you may have worked at some other places where there was exposure as well. So we have to figure all that out, but we know a lot about this plant already. We have won cases and resolved cases based on the evidence that we’ve developed already. So, it’s important to find somebody, some lawyer that knows asbestos cases, knows mesothelioma cases, and preferably knows the plant or the plants that you worked at. You certainly want to find somebody, retain somebody that you feel comfortable with.

This is an important decision. You’ve had a handful of really, really important decisions in your life. Maybe this one is not as important as who you marry and the career path you take and those kinds of things, but it’s up there because the lawyer that you hire is going to be your advocate, is going to be the voice, a voice that quite frankly most people won’t have without their lawyer. You want somebody that’s going to fight for you, fight for your family, somebody that’s going to be able to help you tell your story.

I can’t tell all of your story because I don’t know it yet. I’m going to spend a lot of time with you for as long as it takes, for as long as you can tolerate me, and certainly as long as the case goes, trying to figure out all the things that we need to figure out so that we can convey to judge, jury and our adversaries who you are, how you were exposed, how this cancer affects you, how this cancer affects your family, the things that you can’t do anymore, the unique things about you because we’re all unique. Some people love to watch sports. Some people love to play sports. Some people are avid musicians. Some people are collectors. Some people are car enthusiasts. I mean, everybody’s different, and I want to know all that, and I want to be able to get to know you as much as we possibly can because it only helps in how we represent you.

I want you to feel comfortable with this important decision that you’re making. If it’s not us, if you decide to go somewhere else, then the people you hire, they need to do all those things. You need to feel comfortable with that person because this is it. This is one shot. We have one shot, or you have one shot to get it right. One shot to pursue your case, make sure you put your best foot forward and to get the recovery that will ease your burden or get a recovery that will help your family even past your death. It’s a critically important decision and one that you just have to make sure that you feel really comfortable with the decision that you’ve made.

What is the Statute of Limitations in Kentucky for Mesothelioma Cases?

John: Absolutely. Paul, you mentioned that time is of the essence in a case like this. Can you talk a little bit about the statute of limitations in Kentucky and how that affects the timeline?

Paul: Absolutely, John. So in Kentucky, we have one year from the date that we know or should know that we’re injured and know or should know the cause of the injury. Those aren’t necessarily the same days. You can find out what caused your injury sometime after you’ve been diagnosed, but that having been said, you want to get a case filed as quickly as you can. There’s a lot of different reasons for that.

Certainly, you want to get it filed within a year of the diagnosis. If it’s filed within a year of the diagnosis, you have no worries. No court would dismiss it, and you’ll be able to pursue your case and go after those that have caused you harm. If it’s filed after the year of diagnosis, then a lot of things are out of your hands. The judge who’s deciding your case may want to help you and may want to allow you to keep your case going, but based on the law, they feel like they can’t. There’s very little discretion that these judges are given once the case is filed outside of year of the diagnosis. So, don’t put yourself, put the judges in that position. Get the case filed as soon as possible.

More practically speaking, nothing gets better over time. Memories fade, witnesses are lost. Your medical, your health may deteriorate to the point that you can’t participate anymore. We want you to be able to give your deposition. We want for you to be able to tell your story, for you to be able to tell judge, jury the other side how you were exposed and all the ways that this has impacted you.

Doing that sooner rather than later is really the best practice. The sooner we can get your deposition in, the sooner we can ask for a trial date. I don’t want to certainly be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately it’s likely the trials won’t be scheduled for a year and a half to two years from the date that you filed the case, which is longer than after you were diagnosed.

So, everything that we can do to get a trial date quicker so that everybody is staying on track and we’re making the defendants have to work and do stuff. All of that means, talk to a lawyer immediately. Retain a lawyer as soon as you feel comfortable with somebody, and let’s all work together to get the lawsuit filed and do everything that we can do so that A, you can participate and B, so that we can be as successful as we possibly can. I believe that moving quick really, really enhances the level of success.

John: Okay. Well, that’s really great information, Paul. Thanks again for speaking with me today.

Paul: Thanks, John. I appreciate it.

Information About Satterley and Kelley

John: For more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, visit the law firm of Satterley and Kelley at satterleylaw.com or call 855-385-9532.