Asbestos and Mesothelioma at York International in Madisonville, KY (Podcast)

In this podcast episode, John Maher speaks with Paul Kelley of the Kentucky personal injury law firm Satterley & Kelley. They discuss the historical asbestos use at York International’s facility in Madisonville, Kentucky, which has led to several mesothelioma claims. Paul explains how the plant’s construction period coincided with prevalent asbestos use for insulation and details the risks to workers involved in construction, maintenance, and daily operations. This discussion highlights the crucial steps affected individuals should take following a mesothelioma diagnosis.

John Maher: Hi, I am 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 claims. Today we’re talking about asbestos claims involving York International in Madisonville, Kentucky. Welcome Paul.

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

John: I’m doing well, thanks. How are you?

Paul: Doing very good, thank you.

What is York International?

John: So, Paul, tell us a little bit about York International and where they are and what they do.

Paul: Sure. York International been a company that’s been around for a long, long time, since the early 1900s, but in this particular what we’re talking about today, it had a plant constructed in Madisonville, Kentucky in 1972, and it made air conditioners and accompanying equipment that went along with HVAC systems. I believe it operated in Madisonville for more than 30 years. The plant has since closed down, but it was a mainstay in that area of our great state for close to 30 years.

York International’s Involvement with Asbestos and Mesothelioma Claims

John: And so how is York International involved in asbestos and mesothelioma claims?

Paul: Well, like so many other places in Kentucky, this plant was built at a time when, unfortunately, plants were built with asbestos and we’ve had the opportunity to really get into it and a couple of cases and find out that almost all of the piping in the plant was insulated with asbestos. It was built right at that cut line where in the fifties and sixties, forties, every plant in America essentially was insulated with asbestos.

And then in 1971, the United States enacted the Occupational Safety and Health regulations commonly known as OSHA, and it began regulating asbestos. And so as we started to see things creeping into the mid-seventies and the eighties, asbestos was no longer used in products like thermal insulation, pipe insulation, but 1972 unfortunately was kind of in that transitioning period. And this York plant was absolutely, definitively, no question constructed with asbestos-containing insulation. We learned for a prior case that there was thousands of linear feet of asbestos pipe insulation that was installed in the plant.

And we got that from two pieces of information. One, we received it actually from one of our clients who worked for a company that did some of the installation work there. And then the company itself through documents and records that it either produced or we acquired through some source, showed that at some point there was thousands of feet of asbestos insulation that was installed. And then at some other point in time it was actually removed.

So, just generally speaking, all throughout the plant there was asbestos-containing pipe insulation. They also had a boiler room there, and I believe the boiler was just there for purposes of heating the building. The boiler was insulated with asbestos. There was equipment that was in the boiler room that was also insulated with asbestos-containing insulation. Of course, all the pipes would’ve been connected through flanges and the flanges would’ve contained gaskets.

And so there was a lot of asbestos-containing gaskets that were located in the facility. A lot of valves, all these pipes are connected by valves. Some of the valves are more useful than others certainly, but all the valves would contain packing, packing material, commonly contain asbestos. And then frequently the valves, depending on what they were connecting, those would also be insulated with asbestos. I believe they had some other things in the plant like floor tile and maybe some ceiling tile and things of that nature. But there was a lot there. And unfortunately, there’s been a handful of people who have suffered from mesothelioma following working at that plant.

How Were Employees Exposed to Asbestos?

John: So how and when were those employees exposed to that asbestos that might’ve been in the insulation on those pipes or in the boiler room, in places like that?

Paul: So, I think the most common experience, or the most common experiences were the people who constructed the facility, specifically the insulators, but also anybody that was still there. Typically, the insulation happens last. It’s a pretty dirty process. They get the whole plant up, they get all the piping installed, pipe fitters put together the pipes, and they’re the ones that would handle the gaskets. Millwrights frequently are the employees that handle the valves, sometimes the pipe fitters, but they’re the ones that stuff the packing into the valves and then obviously the insulators do all of the insulation of those miles and miles of pipe that are in the facility.

But by the time that happens, the plant is close to operation. Plant employees were there, people putting the finishing touches on the construction, people who set machinery that was in the plant. Again, this was a big air conditioning facility. They had all kinds of equipment in there in order to accomplish that. They had assembly line facility that was in there. So millwrights installed those and then the plant workers ran those.

So a lot of people who were involved in the construction part and then later on, people who were involved in maintenance, there was a lot of maintenance that was conducted with respect to the piping and to the equipment. Certainly, boiler makers who worked in the boiler room, they would have to come in and what they call overhauls of the boilers. And these were not big boilers like what you see in power houses, but they’re still pretty large, sophisticated pieces of equipment. Lots of times they’d have either asbestos thermal insulation or they’d have refractory or fire brick that contain asbestos. And so the boiler makers would come in and do overhauls and they tear all the old stuff out and put the new stuff in. And certainly, the original old contain asbestos and there likely was a period of time where all the new refractory and fire brick contain asbestos as well.

Pipe fitters would have to work on the pipes. They’d move asbestos insulation to work on the pipes. New insulators would come in and they’d have to tear some old stuff off. If it was a small project, it typically would be the pipe fitters and maintenance that would tear old things off. But if it was a wide scale, large project, they’d bring insulators to come in and they’d remove a thousand feet at a time or 500 feet at a time, and they would get exposed that way.

Plant workers certainly had exposure. They would have exposure when these other crafts were working on the various pieces of equipment. As the years progressed, all of that insulation starts to deteriorate, and so sometimes it just fell down on people and expose them in that way. Sometimes they perform more widespread removal projects. This is before they started doing abatement.

Abatement’s a little bit different because abatement requires them to put up plastic enclosures. The people doing the abatement work are wearing special protective clothing, respirators. The other people that don’t have anything to do with the abatement, they’re kept out of the area and then they use what’s called HEPA filter vacuums and exhaust systems to clean up and remove all the dust when all that happens.

What I’m talking about is when they had a big pipe project and they just had insulators come in and just remove it and not really show any regard for safety and what they’re doing with the insulation and that sort of thing. So there are people that were certainly exposed that way and we’ve represented some of the insulators. We’ve represented some of the other plant workers that have worked there over the years.

And quite frankly, it was really difficult for about 20, 25 years of working there. It was really difficult to not get exposed on some level. It was just dependent on what you were doing, whether you were exposed to a significant amount or whether you were exposed to something less than that. Unfortunately, what the medical literature and scientific literature indicates is that it doesn’t take a lot of asbestos exposure to cause mesothelioma. So even people that didn’t deal with it hands-on on a regular basis, if they were exposed even just a matter of days or weeks, there’s a much higher risk of them developing disease than say people that never worked in that kind of environment.

What Should You Do If You Are Diagnosed with Mesothelioma?

John: So, if you were an employee of York International, or maybe you were one of these subcontractors that came in and worked on the insulation or something like that and now you have mesothelioma, what should you do next?

Paul: So unfortunately, I think you’ve got to talk to a lawyer fairly quickly. People that are diagnosed with this cancer, they’ve got a lot going on. It’s not a good prognosis. Most people pass away within a couple of years of the diagnosis. There’s certainly people that live longer than that. Unfortunately, there’s people that don’t live that long. You have a lot of medical decisions to make depending on your age, depending on your overall health, the treatment that’s available to you is going to be different based on a lot of factors. And so you and your family have to make major decisions on what kind of treatment you’re going to receive, where you’re going to receive that treatment. There may be a reason for you to travel to other cities in the United States where the doctors specialize in treatment of this cancer. You may decide to stay here in Kentucky, which is certainly what a lot of folks do.

So, you’ve got a lot of medical decisions to make. You’ve got a lot of likely emotional trauma to deal with facing this diagnosis. But unfortunately, time doesn’t stop for you. And in Kentucky, we don’t have a ton of time to investigate and file a case. And also because of your prognosis, we want to make sure that you’re able to participate in the case and testify and hopefully can see it till the end. So it’s important to explore your legal rights.

We recognize that you have a lot of options out there, although not really any in Kentucky other than our firm, because we’re the firm that does this. But it’s important to talk to lawyers that A, really know asbestos cases. It’s not an easy litigation. Me and my partner have been doing this for a really long time. We have probably collected, we worked for firms that did it longer than us. So I probably have a database of 50, 60 years of documents and really longer, that we have access to concerning this facility and other facilities. And so it’s important to hire a lawyer that knows asbestos cases and also hire a lawyer that knows the locations you’ve worked at.

It may not take long, seemingly, to discover information located to a facility, but I don’t have to, because I have it already. And it’s unlikely that we’re going to get anything new because we worked hard in previous cases to get everything that there is. So I think it’s important to hire a lawyer that knows asbestos cases, hire a lawyer that knows this particular firm or this particular location.

And certainly John, it’s important to hire a lawyer that you’re very comfortable with and we get it. This is a very important decision. Most people have never been involved in a lawsuit at all. Most people certainly haven’t been involved in a lawsuit where the subject of it is their fatal cancer and how to deal with their cancer. And what’s really unique about these cases is that all of the exposure, everything that happened, happened 50 years ago, 40 years ago, long time ago. The men and women that we worked for, they were young people when this happened and they didn’t know what was going on. They didn’t know that they needed to have a good memory of how they were exposed. They didn’t know that they were really exposed to asbestos or what it was.

So, we’re going to spend a lot of time together and I will spend as much time with my clients as they can tolerate me because it’s really important that we get to know you, that you get to know us, that we get to understand not just the exposures you had, but who you are, what makes you tick, what you enjoy doing in your life, your family, and now the limitations that you have as a result of this cancer and this diagnosis and the things that you’re going to do to try to fight the cancer.

And we’re not doctors. We don’t provide medical advice in any shape, form, or fashion. You’re going to have far more qualified people, but we do have unique experience in understanding what you’re going through. And I like to believe that in some way that we can help folks do that. But if it’s not us, you should find somebody that makes you feel that way, that’s going to go to bat for you. You’re not just going to be a name, you’re not going to be a number, but you’re going to be who you are. You’re going to be a person, you’re going to be a client, you’re going to be somebody who has had something bad happen to them and has a story to tell, and you need somebody to help you tell that story.

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

John: So, you mentioned that because you have experience with York International and you already know what some of those exposures to asbestos were, what some of the things that might’ve caused the mesothelioma are, that helps you to speed up the process. Why is that important? What’s the statute of limitations in Kentucky and why is it so important to get rolling on this quickly?

Paul: Yeah, so Kentucky, we’re actually one of few states that only have a one-year statute of limitation. Most have two and some have as much as five. We only have a year, and that’s a year from the date that you know or should know you’re injured. And know, or should know the cause of the injury. And then those two dates aren’t necessarily the same. But the rule of thumb is you really want to file that case within a year of diagnosis. That way, there’s no real chance that a court would feel like it has to dismiss it if you filed later than that.

But aside from the statute of limitations, for all the reasons we’ve discussed already during this session, time is of the essence and we are absolutely able. If somebody came to me today said they worked at York or spent some time at York, we’d be prepared to hit the ground running in a day or two and certainly within a couple of weeks.

But you want to be able to participate. If you are stage three and the doctors really have decided that maybe just palliative type care, unfortunately six months from now, you may not be in a position to give a deposition. You may not be in a position to meaningfully participate in your case. So we want to be able to move as quickly as possible so that you can testify. Hopefully, we can get the case to trial while you’re still able to participate. That’s not always the case, but we certainly try our best to make that happen. And we want for you to be able to help make the decisions on whether you want to settle, do you want to go to trial? How do we want to proceed with this case? We want you to be able to tell your story because you have a unique story.

We have heard similar things than what you’ll have to say from other people, but your story is unique to you and you have a right to tell it and you should be able to tell it, and you should be able to tell it the way you want to tell it. If something happens and you’re unable to testify, you’re unable to be at trial, we can probably get evidence from other people. And that’s certainly not going to knock out the ability for your family to recover or for you to recover. But certainly the best evidence that we’re ever going to have of your exposure is you. And so we want for you to be able to tell your story and waiting 8, 9, 10 months from diagnosis to pursue the case is probably not going to help you participate and tell your story.

So, you don’t want to get close to the statute of limitations. You want to control the things that you can control and not push yourself into a spot where you can’t control things. And you certainly want to be able to participate as much as you possibly can and to testify and let everybody know how this has impacted you. And so doing that sooner rather than later, following the diagnosis gives you the best chance. And hiring attorneys that have already dealt with the spots you’ve worked at is going to give you an even better chance because we’re not going to spend a whole bunch of time figuring out this plant. And that’s really, really important. Two, three months makes a much bigger difference than you would think.

John: Absolutely. All right, well that’s really great information Paul, thanks again for speaking with me today.

Paul: Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

Information About Satterley & Kelley

John: And for more information about mesothelioma and asbestos exposure, visit the law firm of Satterley & Kelley at SatterleyLaw.com or call (855) 385-9532.