What to Do After a Mesothelioma Diagnosis

Mesothelioma at International Harvester in Louisville, KY (Podcast)

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In this episode, John Maher speaks with Paul Kelley, partner at Satterley & Kelley, about asbestos exposure at the International Harvester plant in Louisville, Kentucky. Paul explains the plant’s history, its use of asbestos in equipment like furnaces, kilns, and steam lines, and how various workers were exposed to the harmful material. He discusses the legal options available for individuals who have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, including direct employees, contractors, and family members exposed through secondhand contact. Paul emphasizes the importance of moving quickly to file a lawsuit due to Kentucky’s one-year statute of limitations and the need to gather key information and testimonies from those affected.

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.

Welcome Paul.

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

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

Paul: Doing great, thanks.

What is International Harvester in Louisville, KY?

John: So, today we’re talking about International Harvester in Louisville, Kentucky. Can you tell us a little bit about International Harvester and then how that company is related to asbestos and mesothelioma cases?

Paul: Sure. So a lot of folks are probably familiar with International Harvester. They’ve been around for a long time. I think the company started in the late-1800s, early-1900s. It’s a heavy-duty truck and heavy-duty farm equipment tractors, and kind of the full gamut of farming equipment that people can use. And that’s what they have historically manufactured, and that’s historically what they’ve manufactured in Louisville, Kentucky.

Back in the 1940s, the facility that housed International Harvester was actually built as a defense manufacturing plant kind of at the tail end of World War II. And it was owned and operated by the government for a few years. And then in 1949, International Harvester bought the facility and started running it and started manufacturing predominantly farm equipment. And that’s what it manufactured for roughly 50 years until the plant closed down the late ’90s and the early 2000s.

Its relationship to asbestos and to mesothelioma and other diseases is that given the timeframe that International Harvester was constructed and given the period of time that it operated, quite frankly, it was absolutely infested and contaminated with asbestos-containing products. It was all over the facility. It was a giant plant. It had what we call a foundry, and it also had a forge shop.

And foundries are places where basically metal is created by heating liquid materials, and then ultimately it forms into a metal. And then the forge shop is where some additional heating takes place in order to mold and bend those metal pieces into ultimately what becomes component parts for the tractors and farming equipment that they manufactured.

And so there was lots of asbestos that was utilized during the process. There were furnaces and kilns in the facility, ovens that were utilized for all these various heating processes. All of those things contained asbestos. There were miles and miles and miles of steam lines that ran through the plant. The steam lines predominantly carried steam that operated and powered some of the equipment that we’re talking about, the furnaces and the ovens and the kilns, but also operated boilers that were in the facility for the purposes of heating the plant.

And so all these steam lines carried steam that was hundreds if not into the thousands of degrees in temperature. And all of those things were wrapped with asbestos insulation. And so over the years, we have discovered through unfortunately representing a lot of people that worked in that facility, either as a direct employee of International Harvester or as a contractor that worked at the facility, we’ve learned about the various types of asbestos products.

And finally, in about 2001, 2002, somewhere thereabouts, they have actually torn the facility down. People that are familiar with Louisville knows International Harvester was located right around where our airport sits now. And so the airport eventually got control of that property. There were some other businesses that were operated in there in the late ’90s, but now the airport has it. So they had to tear that property down.

When they did, a company came in and conducted an asbestos survey. And just in 2001, I mean, Lord knows what had been in there prior to that point.

John: Sure.

Paul: But just in 2001, before they tore it down, they had to remove asbestos floor tile, pipe insulation, boiler insulation, roofing materials, as well as something called transite siding. Transite was kind of an asbestos cement product, and lots of times it was used as kind of the wall units for various buildings within the facility. So that’s just what was there in 2001. And then prior to that, it was all the insulation that was in the boilers, the furnaces, the kilns, and that would be fire brick, thermal insulation, refractory material.

So, there was a lot there. And it was there really from the time that it was built in about 1946 until they tore the whole plant down in the early 2000s.

Why did International Harvester Have So Much Asbestos?

John: So, International Harvester maybe wouldn’t have had quite as much. They probably would’ve still had asbestos in the plant, but maybe not as much if they hadn’t actually been manufacturing the raw metals and forming the pieces for the tractors right there within the plant. That’s really part of the problem at least, was that they had this forge, like you said, set up and they were dealing with molten metal and furnaces that really required a lot of asbestos, right?

Paul: Yeah, absolutely. If they were just assembling these machines from component parts that were supplied, a lot of the asbestos that was utilized there would not have been necessary. So you’re absolutely right. And again, they pretty much utilized that process for 40, 50 years. And asbestos might not have been in all of that equipment right up to the ’90s. But certainly as we know in 2001, 2002, a lot of it was still there. And certainly, from the ’40s, ’50s into the ’90s, there were definitely people that were exposed in that plant on a fairly regular basis.

What Types of Employees Were Exposed to Asbestos?

John: Who were some of those employees? What types of employees might’ve been exposed to the asbestos that was there in the plant?

Paul: So, of course, the obvious folks are the ones that constructed the plant way back in 1946. All that pipe insulation had to go in. All of the insulation went into the equipment. And so the insulators that insulated it, the millwrights who probably set some of the equipment. Those folks certainly were exposed.

And then, as you move forward into the operation of the plant, that’s where it got really devastating because what we’ve seen over the years are just a wide variety of people and people that you wouldn’t, or at least people outside of what I do, you might not ordinarily expect that they’d be exposed. So for example, a few years ago I had a crane operator. I mean, the guy just operated a crane, and he was heavily exposed from driving and operating the crane in the plant, and he’d be around maintenance people who had to remove the insulation for various purposes.

Pipes fail. There are problems that occur. They need to be troubleshooted. And every time that occurred, somebody would’ve to get up there and remove the insulation from the piping, and they would expose themselves. They would expose all of the people that are working in the area.

And I’m not being critical of those people because they didn’t know. But the bottom line is that if you were working in assembly, if you were working in the Forge shop, if you were working in the foundry and there had to be work that was being performed on the piping or any of this equipment, it wasn’t just the people that were directly doing the work that were exposed, it was really everybody that was working in the area.

So, who would be working on those things? Well, pipe fitters would work on the pipes in addition to the maintenance mechanics. Boilermakers would work on the boilers. Lots of times millwrights would work with the furnaces and the kilns. Sometimes boilermakers would do those. Sometimes electricians had to work on those pieces of machinery because they all had electrical components to them as well. Of course, insulators worked on all those pieces of equipment at various times, whether it was the original insulation or when they had something called overhauls.

So, the pipe insulation theoretically wouldn’t have to be removed for many, many years if there wasn’t a problem, if there wasn’t a pipe failure or some reason to work on it. But the furnaces in the ovens and the kilns and the boilers, that insulation was not meant to last for 20 years. It was subjected to extremely high temperatures, extremely high heat, lots of wear and tear. So every so often, every three or four years, every plant’s different, but let’s say within five years, all the fire brick, all the insulation, all the refractive material, all of that would have to be removed. They get into the piece of equipment. These are huge furnaces. These are huge boilers. I mean, multiple people can stand inside of these things.

And so, they would basically tear them down from top to bottom. And they wouldn’t just work on the insulation, but anything that needed to be dealt with. And there was piping in these machines and tubes that were in these machines, again, electrical components. So they tear all those down. And so the boiler makers or the millwrights or maintenance mechanics, people in those kinds of trades would get in and do that kind of work. But again, even if you weren’t one of the trades who was working directly doing that, you’d still have a high likelihood of exposure if you were working on some other aspect of the furnace.

So, for example, I’ll have clients who their job is to replace the doors. The doors would fail. And so as a part of these overhauls, they get in and they take the doors off. Well, while they’re doing that, there are other trades that are right inside the furnaces that are tearing out all the bad stuff. And so the people working on the doors would still get exposure. So those kinds of folks.

You’d get outside contractors, and there were always all kinds of outside contractors that worked in a plant like International Harvester. Sometimes they had their own skilled trades. Sometimes it was easier to get skilled trade from the labor unions or independent contractors. So those folks would come in.

But quite frankly, really anybody that could have spent any significant time in the plant during all these various activities would be exposed because if you are an engineer, if you’re a supervisor, if you are somebody that comes in from “corporate” on occasion, when they’re doing all of that work, unless you somehow manage to go into a bubble somewhere and not have to walk through the plant and be exposed to it, there was a pretty significant chance that you could get exposure. Maybe those type of people wouldn’t get the same level that the direct workers would or the people that worked in the plant, day in and day out. But we’ve talked about this before.

The insidious part about asbestos is science doesn’t know exactly how much of it takes to cause mesothelioma in particular, but they know that it’s a relatively scant amount. And historically, there’ve been famous scientists who’ve said, “Asbestos really doesn’t care who you are, what your job title is and what you wear to work. Asbestos just cares if you have lungs and a way to breathe and a way for it to get to your lungs.”

And so that’s the problem with this cancer. And what we’ve seen is that if you walk through the plant one day, you probably were okay. If you spent 25 years in that plant, day in and day out, breathing the asbestos that quite frankly was being stirred up one way or the other every day, you were put at significant risk of contracting disease. And then there are people that are in between that didn’t just walk through one day and didn’t just, or didn’t spend all day every day, but they received a significant exposure.

And we know that in the late-1970s there was what we call industrial hygiene sampling air monitoring, whatever you want to call it. And they took samples at various parts of the plant and they found levels that were known to be very high at the time. They were probably within what we called permissible exposure limits in the 1970s, at least in some respects. But by today’s standard, I mean it’s devastating levels.

And even back then, they knew that those levels were not good. It’s just what OSHA and EPA said was an okay limit for the purposes of what they were doing in those plants. And that’s just one day. That’s just one day that somebody comes in and takes some air measurements and does some sampling. And that one day showed levels that were 200 times what your levels are today. So that’s not a good thing.

I know that’s a long-winded answer of how and who’s exposed, but the answer to the question is virtually everybody that worked in that plant on any extended period of time, and by extended, I mean a few weeks or more over the history of the plant, they got exposed. And we’ve seen people, we’ve seen people in both kind of gamuts: the everyday worker contract this terrible disease, and we’ve seen people that spent an appreciable amount of time, but far less than your typical worker.

Mesothelioma Can Impact Anyone with Any Level of Exposure

John: And mesothelioma is very indiscriminate. I mean, you could have somebody who just gets exposed one time or a couple of times and then they end up with mesothelioma, and you could have somebody who worked directly with it for 25 years and they don’t get the disease. So you just really kind of never know.

Paul: Yeah, and I think it’s very similar to cigarette smoking. I think people can get used to that. And cigarette smoking is the biggest cause of lung cancer and some other cancers. And everybody knows the person that smoked every day for 50 years and somehow didn’t get lung cancer, and then the person that smoked for five years quit for 25 and then somehow ended up getting it.

So, there’s always what we kind of call an individual susceptibility and genetics and other things certainly play a factor in the development of mesothelioma following an asbestos exposure.

But what we know is it’s the single biggest cause of mesothelioma. We know that no one credibly believes that there’s any safe level of exposure to asbestos. And we know that people have had relatively minor exposures have developed this disease. And that’s why, quite frankly, I still am doing what I do after 20 some odd of doing this because companies just failed miserably to protect people from exposure to this terrible product, even though there was a lot of knowledge there that certainly they had that people like my clients didn’t have, that this exposure was likely going to result in significant harm to a whole bunch of people.

What Should You Do If You Worked at International Harvester And Have Been Diagnosed with Mesothelioma?

John: So, if you worked at International Harvester and now you have mesothelioma, or maybe a family member of yours worked at International Harvester and they potentially brought it home and you were exposed because of that, what should you do next?

Paul: That’s a good point. So there’s two different kind of tracks here. You’ve got people who were direct employees of International Harvester. You’ve got people who were contractors that worked on their property for whatever reason. And then you’ve got people in that situation who were family members of one of those two other groups. And we’ve seen a lot of cases from both Harvester, as well as other types of facilities that didn’t work in a plant, and they washed the clothing, handle the clothing of their spouse or parent, and got dust exposure and ended up contracting the disease. So there’s multiple different ways.

Depending on who you are and how you were exposed and which of those boxes you fit in is going to have a big impact on what you can do. If you’re a direct employee of International Harvester, one thing that’s off the table is filing a suit directly against International. Kentucky like most states has a workers’ compensation system that prevents and precludes you from filing a direct, what we call a tort claim, a lawsuit against your employer.

So, in that instance, what we do is we look for manufacturers of products, contractors that put products in the plant and try to develop and maintain a case in that regard.

There’s also something called a bankruptcy claim process that can be pursued. A lot of your historical manufacturers of asbestos containing products have gone into bankruptcy over the years, and they’ve established trusts with which you can file claims. So there’s definitely a path for compensation for you and your family in that regard. But it is a little bit harder because in most instances, not only can you not file the lawsuit against International Harvester, but for legal reasons, you can’t even file a workers’ compensation claim against it anymore either.

Now, if you’re a contractor, more than likely you can still file a case directly against International Harvester, plus all those other entities we talked about, and that might increase the pool of compensation available to you in that regard. And that’s certainly a good thing.

Now, the people who were exposed in the home from the clothing of their loved ones, everything’s on the table. They can pursue a case against Harvester. They can pursue a case against contractors. They can pursue a case against manufacturers, distributors, I mean anybody that’s still out there and file the bankruptcy claims as well. So they’ve all got an ability to do that.

The biggest issue I think is when people get diagnosed with this cancer, it’s a huge shock, John. I mean, it’s a fatal disease. I mean, I’ve represented close to a hundred people in my career, 20 some odd years, that have had mesothelioma. I can only think of one person that’s lived more than three years, four years. It’s not good. And so it’s a big shock when people get this diagnosis and they’re still trying to figure out, ‘Well, how in the world was I exposed,” because they didn’t really know.

And then they get this terrible news that more than likely this is a fatal disease, and the only real treatment available to them is palliative care, life prolonging, but not curative. So I think it’s critically important for people and their families to make sure that they understand all of the medical options available to them, because that’s obviously the most important.

I mean, what I do, I think ultimately is important to people, but certainly the medical care treatment, the path that you choose to take, it’s a big decision and it’s one that should not be taken lightly, and it’s one that should be taken with all of the best information that you can possibly get.

We sit in a great place in Kentucky, Louisville in particular, but Lexington, Northern Kentucky. There’s certainly a lot of great doctors out there. And there’s a lot of great doctors that can treat this cancer in a lot of traditional ways, chemotherapy, radiation, that sort of thing. But there are surgeries people can receive, and those are typically highly specialized, and they’re not offered in most places. So a lot of our clients go to Massachusetts, New York, Houston, Chicago, a variety of places in order to get treated.

So, it’s critically important that people work with their doctors and their families to determine the best medical path for them. But the problem is while that’s an overwhelming process, time doesn’t stand still for any lawsuit that can be filed. And so it’s really important to seek legal advice as fast as you can to determine what legal rights you have, whether you have a case, who that case is against, where that case can be filed because things don’t get better over the course of time. People’s memories fade. Your health could deteriorate. Defendants that we plan on suing, I mean just by virtue of bad luck, they might disregard or discard documents and those sort of things.

So, I think it’s critical to conduct the research, figure out what lawyers are best for you. We recognize that there’s a lot of options, but certainly if your exposure was in Kentucky, we think we’re a good option. We think we’re a good option because most of the places that people were exposed, we know about. And we’ve got significant evidence already demonstrating the existence of asbestos of these plants. We have a lot of evidence already concerning the knowledge of the defendants. And that’s important because the last thing that you really want is to have to waste any time at all trying to figure stuff out.

There’s always things to figure out. I’ve never gotten a call from somebody where everything’s in a nice neat little package and we’re ready to go. But frequently, and particularly if we’re talking about this facility, we know what to do right out of the box. And there will be other exposures to pursue and other questions that have to be asked. But I think it’s important to find somebody that really handles asbestos cases, handles asbestos cases in the place that your case is going to be filed, is familiar with the locations that you worked at to the extent that anybody could be. There’s always some places that people aren’t familiar with, but this one we’re familiar with.

And find somebody you’re comfortable with, because outside your doctors and your medical care, there’s nothing more important than feeling comfortable with your lawyer because you’re going to have a relationship with that person for two or three years.

Why Move Quickly on a Mesothelioma Case?

John: Yeah. And it sounds like there’s a lot of reasons for moving quickly on a case like this. Is the statute of limitations also one of those reasons? And what’s the statute of limitations in a case like this in Kentucky?

Paul: Yeah. That’s a great question. In Kentucky, it’s quite frankly, it’s terrible. We only have one year from the date that we know or should know that there’s an injury and what the cause of that injury is to file a lawsuit. And those dates can theoretically be different.

What we try to do is get a case filed well within the year of date of diagnosis. If you file the case within a year of your diagnosis of mesothelioma, there’s no risk whatsoever that a court would have to throw the case out for failing to file it on time.

Statute of limitations in Kentucky and a lot of states, it’s really harsh. Our judges don’t have much discretion in allowing a case to continue if they don’t think that it was filed within that year. They may want to, but they can’t do it.

So, obviously we want to talk to you as quickly as you feel comfortable after you’ve received the diagnosis. And we want to do that for a bunch of reasons. And the statute of limitations is a big one because if you wait eight months or don’t get to me for eight months, I’ve got some work to do before we can get the case filed, even if we’re very familiar with the location like International Harvester, and we never get anywhere close. I mean, if somebody came to me two weeks after their diagnosis, more than likely we’d have the lawsuit filed month or two. But it’s really important from that standpoint.

And it’s also important because again, unfortunately the prognosis cannot be very good. And the longer it takes to get a case filed, the longer it takes to get other things done.

One of the things that I really want to push for when I file a case for somebody who’s still alive is we want to get their deposition in. We want for them to be able to tell the defendants, the judge, the jury, what’s happened to them. Not just what their exposures were, but what happened to them, their disease, when they were diagnosed, how that’s made them feel physically and emotionally, the medical treatment they’ve gone through. We want them to tell everybody about their family and what they’ve enjoyed with their lives and everything that makes that person or made that person who they are.

And the best way to do that is to do it as early as possible, do it when they’re healthy and strong, and are really able to accurately convey that.

So, we want to do that as quickly as possible. So the statute of limitations is critically important, but also from a tactical and strategic reason, the most important thing for me is that you get to tell your story. It’s not that I can’t make the case without it. We can get that information from other people, but nobody knows your story better than you do. I mean, nobody does. And so we want to be able to get that story from our clients, let them explain to the world how this has impacted them. And you want to do that as quickly as possible, and you certainly don’t want to get anywhere close to that statute of limitations.

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

Paul: No problem. Thank you, John.

Information About the Law Firm of Satterley & Kelley

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

Will Constructing a New Cancer Center Building Cause Cancer?

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Asbestos was used in buildings as late as the 1980s so any large building existing during the time could have it. One of those buildings belongs to the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC). Their planned demolition to create a new building and expand their services has neighbors concerned about asbestos exposure.

MSKCC plans to have a 31-story cancer care pavilion in Manhattan’s Lenox Hill neighborhood up and running by 2030, but first, a building there now must come down, reports the New York Post. That’s created a lot of concern among those living in the area. They’ve started an online Change.org petition claiming the demolition will endanger students in a nearby school.

Toxic Substances in the Building Include Asbestos and Lead Paint

Opponents want a neutral third party to monitor air quality during demolition to raise warnings if it’s not as healthy as MSKCC claims it will be. The hospital filed a report with the city stating that demolition in the area has the “potential for adverse impacts” because of the presence of

  • Chemical and radioactive products
  • Hazardous waste
  • Petroleum storage tanks
  • Asbestos-containing materials
  • PCB-containing materials
  • Lead-based paint

An MSKCC representative told The Post they are following all protocols mandated by the city and state to ensure safety in the area. Asbestos is a repeated concern in Lenox Hill. On August 1, a damaged steam pipe sent asbestos into the air, forcing people indoors.

MSKCC, founded in 1884, is the city’s largest cancer center. As of last year, it employed 1,493 attending physicians, accommodated 25,591 admissions, and had 1,002,206 outpatient visits.

Call Us Today For A Free Mesothelioma Lawsuit Consultation

If you have mesothelioma or another asbestos-related illness, you may be entitled to compensation. To discuss your situation and how Satterley & Kelley, PLLC can help, call our Louisville office toll-free at 855-385-9532. You may also complete our contact form for a free initial consultation.

Palliative Care for Mesothelioma

Mesothelioma at E.I. Dupont in Louisville, KY (Podcast)

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In this episode, John Maher interviews Paul Kelley, a partner at Satterley & Kelley, about mesothelioma cases related to asbestos exposure at E.I. DuPont in Louisville, Kentucky. Paul explains the history of the DuPont plant, its use of asbestos in steam lines, chemical tanks, and other equipment, and how this exposure affected workers and contractors. He highlights how various employees, from insulators and laborers to supervisors and office workers, were at risk of exposure. Paul also discusses the importance of early legal action for those diagnosed with mesothelioma, the role of depositions in building a case, and the urgency of filing within the statute of limitations to pursue compensation.

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 claims. Today, we’re talking about mesothelioma cases at E.I. DuPont in Louisville, Kentucky. Welcome, Paul.

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

John: Good, thanks. How are you?

Paul: Doing great, thank you.

What is E.I. DuPont?

John: So, Paul, tell us a little bit about E.I. DuPont, where they’re located and what they do or did.

Paul: Sure. So, I’m sure everybody’s familiar with DuPont. It’s a big company that still exists today, but as it relates to Louisville, Kentucky, it was a big plant that was built in 1941. It’s in a place that if anybody from Louisville is listening, it’s an area in town called Rubber Town. There were a lot of plants that were built in this area in South Louisville back in the 1940s and 1950s that predominantly supported the war effort, and that’s what this facility was originally built for. Ultimately, over the years, it turned into a chemical plant, and that’s what it did for many years. So, for several years, it was a rubber plant.

For several years, it was a chemical plant, but given the time period that we’re talking about that it was built 1941, this was a period of time in the United States where big manufacturing plants like DuPont were built with lots of asbestos products. The main things that we’ve seen it in with respect to this plant is the steam lines, the piping that ran throughout the plant as well as all of the chemical tanks, the furnaces, ovens, all of the things that utilized in the manufacturing process of some of these chemical processes, and then of course, originally back when they were manufacturing rubber. The chemicals that we’re talking about, these are typically volatile chemicals. They require high temperatures in order to manufacture, and they’re made in the plant.

Lots of the equipment that’s utilized to both manufacture the chemicals as well as to store them were required to withstand high temperatures. So, asbestos was utilized to insulate these tanks and insulate the pieces of equipment that used the manufacturer as well as all the steam lines in order to withstand all of these high temperatures. So, the steam lines were insulated, the storage tanks were insulated, the manufacturing machines were insulated. For many, many years, probably for most of the time through the 1940s, through the 1980s, most of those pieces of equipment and those piping contained asbestos.

We know that from cases that we have litigated out of that plant over the last 20 years or so, we’ve represented a handful of people that both worked for DuPont as well as contractors that worked for other companies and we learned that it was everywhere. I mean, the steam lines, not only did it run through the manufacturing parts of the facility, but it also ran through the change rooms where employees could get changed. It ran through break areas and lunchrooms. So, anytime that there was a potential for somebody to disturb the insulation in any of those areas, I mean, people might be exposed just harmlessly trying to eat their lunch.

What Types of Employees Were At Risk of Exposure?

John: Right, absolutely. Yeah. So, talk a little bit more about those types of employees that might’ve had the most exposure to these pipes and the different places where asbestos was found in the DuPont plant and then maybe some of the other types of workers that might’ve also been exposed, even though maybe they didn’t have as much direct contact.

Paul: Sure. So, I think the people who were exposed the heaviest were more than likely the insulators that insulated facility way back when, really everybody that participated in the construction of the plant in the 1940s, but they’ve had renovations. There was an explosion out there in 1960, 1960, 1961, somewhere in that period of time. That was a significant event because they pretty much had to clean up everything that had been damaged during this explosion, which included lots of these storage tanks and vessels, a lot of the steam lines and pipe insulation.

There were laborers, there were mechanics. People that just generally, they just gave them bags and brooms and equipment and said, “Start cleaning this stuff up.” So those kinds of folks received a heavy, heavy exposure. Then of course, when they rebuilt the areas in the plant that were destroyed, that was 1960. So, there wasn’t anything new or different in 1960 about what they were insulating with during that period of time than when they originally insulated the plant.

John: Right. They just still put asbestos insulation back on the same pipes.

Paul: That’s absolutely right. So, again, the insulators that did it, the carpenters that participated in the construction, the pipe fitters that participate in the construction, the electricians, millwrights, I mean all of those crafts would’ve been or were heavily, heavily exposed during the construction aspect of it. Then as you move forward into the operation of the plant, periods where they weren’t conducting construction per se, but they were still conducting manufacturing operations and other things. Well, I mean there’s all kinds of things that have to be done in a plant. I mean the piping failed from time to time and they had to replace it. Every time somebody had to replace the piping, they would have to remove the insulation.

Sometimes the insulators would do that, sometimes mechanics would do it, sometimes laborers would do it, sometimes millwrights would do it, sometimes the pipe fitters would do it. So, people like that that were directly handling it would be exposed. People that were working in the nearby area when that was occurring, so somebody was working on the lines, actually making the chemical operators, the machine operators, they were certainly exposed. People that worked in the warehouse that are moving things about were secondarily exposed during all of these maintenance activities. The storage tanks and the manufacturing equipment, I mean, those things were frequently down.

Again, the insulation and the asbestos materials that were located on those machines, they couldn’t last forever. So, they had to be replaced from time to time. Sometimes outside contractors would come in and do that work, sometimes plant crafts. So, all those kinds of crafts that we discussed earlier, the pipe fitters, electricians, millwrights, insulators, sometimes they would do it. But the real devastating part about asbestos is that there was a whole group of people who didn’t work with asbestos products that still were exposed in the plant. I mean, you’d have supervisors that never laid a finger on it. You’d have engineers. I mean, this was a sophisticated operation, and it takes lots of highly educated folks to work in a plant like that.

The chemical operators, people that didn’t directly work with any of the materials, but they’re there and they’re being exposed to those things when all of these other crafts are working, doing their jobs. So, they’re having exposure. Outside contractors, of course, there were several outside contractors that directly worked with it, but there were other outside contractors that might not have had a thing to do with any of the asbestos that was in there, but to the extent that somebody else was working with it. Sometimes the plant conditions were so poor because that insulation would just deteriorate. We’ve heard stories about it just dropping from the piping. I mean, imagine the piping 50 feet in the air.

I mean, these plants are absolutely huge plants, football field-sized plants. This insulation sometimes would deteriorate and just fall on the ground and it would hit people. It would land on the floor and it wouldn’t get cleaned up right away. When it did get cleaned up, nobody was doing anything particularly special to clean it up, a broom, compressed air, sometimes an industrial Shop-Vac, but nothing that was appropriate to remove asbestos.

Asbestos In The Air

John: That’s bound to just throw up a whole cloud of asbestos dust into the air as well, that you can’t just clean up with a broom either.

Paul: Sure. I mean, everybody’s seen compressed air used on something at some point. If you spray it off in your car or…

John: …It just moves the dust from one place to another place, but it doesn’t remove it.

Paul: It doesn’t do anything. It just swirls it around, moves it space to space. People are still continuing to get exposed, and then it’s there for the next person the next day. Something else that I think is always important, is always a problem, is that most of these facilities, what they did eventually is one of two things. They either removed it. Okay, that’s great. They had an abatement company come in and they removed the pipe insulation. They removed the piping or they covered it. They took some metal wrapping and they covered it.

But what I’ve infrequently heard, maybe never heard, is that anybody ever hired an abatement company to come in and do a top-to-bottom cleaning of the floors, the rafters, the trusses, the walls, the equipment that they ever came in and used a HEPA-filtered vacuum cleaner and all the latest and greatest safe methods to completely remove asbestos. So, even when technically it wasn’t used anymore or it was wrapped or it wasn’t there, if it wasn’t adequately or appropriately removed from the facility itself, there’s still an ability to be exposed.

I would say that that probably deep into the 1990s, there were people still exposed to asbestos in that plant, certainly not what it was in the ’40s through the ’70s, but I think there’s still certainly people that unknowingly had exposures, because quite frankly, the most appropriate methods to clean and remove it weren’t used.

Were White Collar Workers Exposed to Asbestos?

John: It’s not just the blue-collar workers who are working on those pipes and things like that either. It could have been what we would call the white collar workers who were the secretaries, the managers, the people in the offices. Most of those people would’ve at least walked through the plant at one time or another or multiple times.

Paul: Yeah, I mean, it’s very rare that you would hear somebody work in a place like that and not have reason to go into the plant. I mean, certainly, supervisors and engineers had to be there all the time, but I would think that secretaries and assistants and all kinds of people. The thing about asbestos that is scientifically proven is there is no known safe level of exposure. I mean all of these from OSHA to NIOSH to EPA, the World Health Organization, I mean you name any national or international health or labor organization, none of them have ever said that there’s a safe level of exposure that anybody’s ever been able to figure out. So, the problem is that the medical and scientific literature is absolutely just full of instances where people had relatively small exposures.

Maybe they worked in the plant for a week, that’s it. They developed mesothelioma and that’s what caused it. We’ve seen family members who never actually worked in the plant, but spouses and children of employees that work there and the employees take it home and it’s on their clothes. All they do is shake the clothes out or all they do is handle it and put it into the washing machine or put it into a hamper and they get exposed. It’s never some massive exposure that exceeds all regulatory limits. It’s just this little exposure, but that’s the problem and that’s why it’s a devastating substance. That’s why nobody uses it anymore. That’s why it’s effectively been outlawed in this country and most other countries.

It doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t care what your job is. It doesn’t care what you’re wearing. All it cares is if you’re a person and have lungs and a way to breathe and for it to get to your lungs. When it gets there, it stays there. When it stays there, it starts causing the cellular insult that ultimately for some people turns into cancer.

What Should You Do If You Have Mesothelioma?

John: Right. So, if you worked at E.I. DuPont or maybe you were a contractor who just worked in that plant for a certain period of time and now you have mesothelioma, what should you do?

Paul: So, there’s a lot of different things. Unfortunately, mesothelioma in particular is a fatal disease. There is no known cure for it. There are lots of treatments and the treatments have gotten better and people’s lives have been prolonged, but right now, there’s no known treatment that could apply to everybody. So, a lot of people when they get this diagnosis, they have a lot of things they got to work through and they got to figure out the best way for them to be treated. In places like Kentucky, we have a lot of options, but there are different options outside of Kentucky. So, one thing that people have to do is work with their doctors and work with their families to figure out the very best way to treat this cancer for them. Your age has an impact. Your overall health has an impact.

Where you are in the state, the country, all those things have an impact, but certainly the most important thing that anybody can do is make sure that they’re very comfortable and feel like they’re doing what they can do to fight this cancer. So, that’s number one. Number two and not a distant number two and not necessarily this is all chronological, let me get treated and then talk to a lawyer. You have to do all this at the same time. I hate to tell people that, but it’s really important to consult with an attorney, do your research, figure out the best situation for you and your family, find the attorney that you’re comfortable with, who you think is best suited for what it is that you want to accomplish.

That should happen pretty quick, and it should happen pretty quick for a lot of different reasons. We’ll talk about the statute of limitations in a minute, but from a practical standpoint, you have to hit the ground running. As I’ve mentioned, your medical care can be an issue and we don’t want to do anything to interfere with that. The prognosis can be difficult, and it’s important that you can participate in your case. We want for you to be able to tell us just as your lawyer, just us, we want to find out everything there is about you. We want to know about your exposure. We want to know about your family. We want to know what you did for a living. We want to know what you enjoy to do, what you historically have enjoyed to do.

We want to know what limitations you might have now as a result of this cancer. We want to know what makes you tick. What are your fears? What are your concerns? How do you plan on fighting this cancer? What can we do in some way to help you fight that cancer? We want to get information that’s going to help us help you. So, that’s very important. Your ability to do that is best in the beginning. Lots of times, John, people call me and they say, “Paul, I don’t have the slightest idea. I don’t know how I was exposed.” They start guessing. Guessing’s never good. I get it. It’s human nature, but guessing’s never good. I may not know everything there is to know. You may stump me.

There may be some places you worked that I’m not familiar with, but if you worked at this place, for example, I’m very familiar with it. So, you tell me that you work there. Well, then I’ve got 25 questions to ask you that I can figure out pretty quickly how you were exposed. There’s dozens, if not hundreds, of places in the state of Kentucky just like it that I can help you figure it out. We’re going to help you think of things that you’ve never thought of before. It’s not for any reason other than the fact that you weren’t told in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, whenever, you weren’t told, companies didn’t tell you, employers didn’t tell you, manufacturers didn’t tell you, contractors didn’t tell you.

So, we want to be able to help you figure those things out, and we want to be able to do it as quickly as possible because the next step is really important too. The next step is getting your deposition in. A lot of people have never given a deposition before. They don’t know what it is, but basically, it’s very similar to the process of me asking you questions about yourself and how you were exposed. But the difference is now there’s lawyers there and you’re videotaped and there’s a videographer and a stenographer there. They’re taking it all down. We want to create a record. Our sincere hope is that if this case ever goes to trial, that you would be there and you would be able to look the jury in the eye and tell the jury for yourself.

But if something happens and you can’t do that, we take the deposition and we get all that evidence out there. It’s there for us to be able to show a judge and jury later on if that’s what we need, and then the defendants have their opportunity to ask questions. We think that helps in a lot of respects. It helps be successful in the case. Being successful is not necessarily taking a case to trial and getting a verdict. Sometimes being successful is getting a settlement that makes sense for you and your family.

I have met so many people impacted by this devastating disease, and I can’t tell you how many times we walk out of one of these depositions and defense lawyer, somebody representing a company like DuPont taps me on the shoulder and says, “Paul, Mr. Smith was heck of a guy. I mean, he’s going to be tough for us to beat up in front of a jury.” I get that all the time. They’re not going to know that if we wait and wait and wait to take your deposition. So, we want to get information or get information out there that’s going to help you. We want to show everybody that you’re a person, that you’re great person, that you’ve got a good family, and we want to show how this impacts you.

So, it’s important to do those things as early as possible, so that you can participate and give us the very best version of you and get the very best account of everything that’s happened to you. Then certainly, there’s other things for us to do. We want to talk to coworkers. Well, guys, John, some of these exposures go back 50 years.

John: Sure.

Paul: I mean, so if you’re 75, 80 years old when you come to me, your coworkers are going to be in that same range. So, we sometimes struggle to find people that shared the experience with you and can back up what you’ve said. So, doing that earlier, sooner rather than later is always a good thing. So, it’s all very important. Once we talk to you and we figure out how you were exposed and what your role is, then we figure out the best way to proceed with your case. Lots of times when people worked at DuPont, they worked at a bunch of places. So, we’ve got a big pool of defendants. Sometimes when they worked at DuPont, they worked just at DuPont and that shrinks it. But sometimes that can make it easier, sometimes it makes it harder.

But all those things are things that we want to evaluate and I want to get to know you. When somebody hires me, I mean I talk to them once a week, multiple times a week. We text. You’re going to get tired of me. We’re going to talk a lot. That’s what we want to do. Ultimately, it’s very critical that you and your family feel extreme comfort with the lawyer that you’ve hired. That lawyer’s going to do the things that you need in order to be successful. Sometimes that means pushing you to think back. Sometimes that’s pestering you a little bit more than maybe you signed up for and asking you to do some things that’s outside your comfort zone, like giving a deposition, but that’s what you need.

We feel like we are very uniquely situated to be able to do that, particularly for cases in Kentucky and the nearby areas and certainly at DuPont. We are very adept and qualified in order to do that, but it’s just very important that you don’t let a lot of time go by and you talk to a lawyer. Every now and again, there’s just nothing there for whatever reason, but most of the time there is there. You want to be prepared to hit the ground running and have the lawyers that are ready to do that for you.

Do You Record Depositions?

John: Right. Regarding the deposition, do you typically videotape those? If you do and the person is unfortunately maybe bedridden or in a hospital or something like that, are you actually able to take that deposition from them anyway even though they might be bedridden already?

Paul: Absolutely. We of course try to avoid that, but if all else fails and there’s just no other way to do it, yeah, absolutely. I’ve taken depositions in hospitals. I’ve taken depositions in nursing homes. We’ve taken depositions in people’s homes. At some point, I tell everybody, “Look, I know this is unpleasant and I know it’s inconvenient and people don’t like having lawyers coming to their homes and Lord knows the hospitals and the nursing homes hate having all that in their places, but you hired us to do what we have to do in order to help you. If that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. Everything that I do on a case, I do it with purpose.”

I ask myself this question, is this going to help us be successful for our client? If the answer is yes, we do it and we do it at whatever cost it takes to get it accomplished. If it can’t happen, it’s not from lack of desire or lack of trying.

How Quickly Do You Need to Start a Mesothelioma Case?

John: How quickly do you need to move on a mesothelioma case? Is there a statute of limitations that requires you to do it within a certain amount of time?

Paul: There is. In Kentucky, we have a year from the date that we know or should know that we have an injury and know or should know the cause of that injury. Those dates are not necessarily the same. You could get diagnosed with the mesothelioma, not have a good idea of what your exposure is, figure that out three months from now. Technically, you’d still be within your statute of limitations, but I don’t like to fool with that. If you file your lawsuit within a year of the diagnosis of your cancer, you’re not going to have any problems being able to maintain your case. So, we want to try to get it filed within that year. The statute of limitations, it’s what we call jurisdictional.

So, if you file it a day late, then there’s nothing a judge can do to let you off the hook. I mean, there are very few exceptions and I mean very few exceptions that could ever exist to allow you to pursue a case. A lot of our judges would love to help you out, but they can’t. So, that’s why you contact the lawyer immediately and that’s why the lawyers want to start moving immediately, so that you can get that case filed as quickly as possible. So, that, A, you don’t come close to running a file of the statute of limitations and then for all the things that we discussed earlier as to why starting sooner is better than later.

How Do You Document Mesothelioma?

John: If you had to have the year from when you first discovered the cause of your injury, how do you even document that? Would that be the first day that they called you and you talked with them and figure out together what the exposure might’ve been and when it happened? Would it go from that date and you have documentation to show that?

Paul: Well, that’s a great question and it’s a little difficult to answer because it’s going to be all different. More than likely that date is going to be sometime before you contacted me because you had some reason to contact me. It could theoretically be after. What we’ve seen a lot is somebody is talking to their doctor and their doctor says, “Well, where were you exposed to asbestos?” The client, patient says, “Guys, I don’t know. I’ve never been exposed to asbestos.” Then later on they do some research and they see… I’ll just use DuPont as an example. They do some research and they see that there was asbestos at DuPont and they didn’t know there was asbestos at DuPont. So, they contact me. Maybe they found it because they found this podcast or found something on the internet about it.

John: Sure.

Paul: They contact me, and they say, “I was diagnosed in July 1st, but I didn’t figure it out until August 1st. I had no idea there was asbestos there.” We get that case filed. For whatever reason, we get it filed August 3rd, a year later, or July 15th, a year later. We would have to argue to the court and give the court some good reason that the client had no clue they were exposed to asbestos and that the client didn’t know that there was asbestos in places they worked and that there was nothing in their life that should have made them aware of that. That’s the trick.

John: That’s why you prefer to do it within the year of when they’re diagnosed because otherwise you just have to go through all these hoops in order to explain why they didn’t know.

Paul: That’s right. Lots of times, sometimes the judge will just make the decision that I think the evidence is clear one way or the other. Sometimes that’s what happens. Lots of times they actually let the jury to decide. So, you actually have a whole trial. Then the first question the jury has asked is, “Do you believe that the plaintiff knew or should have known what the cause of their injury was inside of the year of when they filed the lawsuit?” If the answer is yes, then we get to proceed to the rest of the case. If the answer’s no, then it’s over. So, you see where the problem is. These cases take a long time. They’re very expensive. You could litigate a case for two years, three years, get it to trial, and then have a jury say, “We just think that you should have known sooner and bump your case.”

That’s obviously terrible for everybody. I mean, emotionally, it’s awful for our clients because they never get their day in court. They never get to actually tell the jury or have the jury decide whether they’ve been harmed. It’s terrible for us because we have to go through all that with our client and then the cases are very expensive. I mean, you could spend $100,000 on a case and have it bumped, dismissed for statute of limitations. So, there’s no hard and fast rule, and that’s why you want to file that case as quickly as you possibly can. We’ve been successful more often than not at beating these issues. So, it’s not all lost if you do come to us greater than a year from your diagnosis, but it’s a whole lot easier if you come to us before then.

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

Paul: No problem, John. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Information About the Law Firm of Satterley & Kelley

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