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.

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.

In this episode, John Maher talks with Paul Kelley, a partner at Satterley & Kelley, a Kentucky law firm specializing in mesothelioma and asbestos claims. They delve into the history of General Tire and Continental Tire in Mayfield, Kentucky, discussing the asbestos exposure that occurred at these plants and the resulting legal implications for affected employees and their families. Discover the critical steps former employees should take if diagnosed with mesothelioma, including legal avenues available for compensation.

John Maher: Hey, 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 Continental Tire or General Tire in Mayfield, Kentucky.

Welcome, Paul.

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

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

Paul: Doing very good, thank you.

What are Continental Tire and General Tire?

John: So, Paul, tell us a little bit about Continental Tire or General Tire and where they’re located and what they do.

Paul: Sure. So, General Tire was a tire facility located in Mayfield, Kentucky. I believe the plant opened in about 1960 and it had three or four additions onto the plant in the early ’70s and then in the mid-1970s. Pretty much throughout its entire tenure of being open, and I believe the plant has closed in the last decade or so, but it manufactured tires for various types of vehicles, cars, trucks, et cetera, and it was a big employer in Mayfield, Kentucky for a long time until it shut its plant down.

John: And what’s the difference between General Tire and Continental Tire?

Paul: Continental Tire is the successor to General Tire and purchased the company at some point in the ’80s or ’90s, and it’s the company that now is responsible for injuries caused to people who worked at General Tire back in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, as well as is responsible for any defective products that General Tire made.

How are General Tire and Continental Tire Related to Asbestos and Mesothelioma Cancer Claims?

John: Okay. So tell me a little bit about how General Tire and now Continental Tire are related to asbestos and mesothelioma cancer claims.

Paul: So, for a plant that was built during that timeframe, which was 1960, General Tire had a lot of asbestos insulation that was located throughout the plant. It had steam pipes and chemical pipes that were located all throughout the facility.

A tire manufacturing plant is a pretty sophisticated operation. It’s a pretty dirty operation. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of products that are used to make rubber, and then ultimately, the rubber is shaped and formed into what ultimately becomes a tire. There’s tons of machinery that requires heat, and that heat requires steam, and then steam is carried through piping, and all that piping was wrapped in asbestos-containing insulation.

Steam lines that were used to heat the building were wrapped in asbestos-containing insulation. There was miles and miles and miles of steam line all running through that facility. In addition, a lot of the flanges on the piping was connected using asbestos-containing gaskets, and there was a lot of gasketing material that was located throughout the plant.

Some of the equipment that was there had to have some level of insulation wrapped around the equipment in order to keep heat in as well as protect people from exposure. I believe they had a boiler operation there. The boiler was insulated with asbestos. There was tons and tons of valves. All that piping carrying steam is going to have valves that allows the flow of steam from the pipes into whatever piece of equipment it was going. A lot of the valves contained packing that contain asbestos, and a lot of the valves were insulated around the valve in addition to the asbestos-containing packing.

So, we have handled a handful of cases for people who’ve developed mesothelioma from the plant, and those are the kinds of asbestos-containing products that we have historically seen: asbestos insulation, gaskets, packing, the packing-containing valves and the gaskets that goes around them or connects the piping.

How Were General Tire and Continental Tire Employees Exposed to Asbestos?

John: Okay. So how and when, during what time period were the employees of General Tire or Continental Tire exposed to asbestos?

Paul: Well, unfortunately, John, I think a lot of people were exposed at various points doing various things. Of course, back in 1960 and then in ’72 and ’78 when the plant was constructed and then these subsequent additions, folks were exposed during the construction process, and insulators had to come in and insulate all the piping, pipefitters put the gaskets on, a lot of pipefitters or millwrights and mechanics stuffed the valves with the packing.

So, there were a lot of folks who were just involved during the construction process, and of course it’s not limited to the people that are actually doing the insulation work, but anybody that was around when that insulation work was done. Typically, in any type of manufacturing plant, and General Tire is no exception to this, typically the insulation comes on last. And so lots of time, the folks who were constructing the plant, they were putting the final touches on while the insulators came in behind them and installed all the insulation.

When insulation comes on, typically speaking, it’s not a clean process. They had to cut and saw the insulation in order to make it fit around the pipes. It would come in giant stretches, and of course the piping would be different sizes than the insulation. And so they just have an area in the plant, probably close to where they were insulating, where they would saw this insulation usually using a hand saw or some sort of power saw, and it stirred up a lot of dust.

It was hard to get away from. It was very difficult if you worked anywhere in the vicinity. And when I say, “The vicinity,” I mean 100 yards away, 500 yards away, you would certainly get exposure. The closer you are, the worse it got, but it really didn’t matter. If you were in the building when they were doing that work, you were exposed to this insulation when it was happening, of course the pipefitters that put in the gaskets, the carpenters, the millwrights. And then once we start seeing the plant getting close to operational, now you’ve got all the plant employees that are there, the people who are actually setting the equipment and getting ready to do the work. They’re being exposed when this work is happening.

Of course, when the additions happened and what they did in 1972, they put a warehouse in, just a storage warehouse. In 1978, they put another warehouse in. So when all of that work’s happening, the plant’s in production. They didn’t shut the plant down for a year in order to put these new additions on. And so folks were being exposed that way.

Then as the years progressed, you’ve got maintenance workers who had to work on the piping or the equipment, the valves, and all of the maintenance people at one time or another removed, cut into some asbestos insulation, pulled some packing out, took a gasket out or many, and were exposed in that way.

When these additions came on, they weren’t probably as safe as they should have been to make sure that when they were tying in the old stuff and then the new things that they weren’t exposing others. So again, all the people who were working in the plant, and that would go from the maintenance employees to the production employees to any engineers that worked there, plant supervisors, superintendents, the full gauntlet of people that actually worked in the plant on any regular basis. And it really didn’t matter if you were one of the laborers or if you were somebody in management that wore a shirt and tie every day. Asbestos is asbestos and people were getting exposed in numerous ways.

One of the cases we’ve had out of the plant I thought was particularly interesting in terms of the method of exposure, we represented a gentleman. Actually, we represented his wife. His wife developed mesothelioma. She never worked at the plant, but her husband did, and her husband ran basically a little tow truck driver or forklift, and his job was simply to move product from spot A to spot B, and he would go from the warehouse onto the plant to the other warehouse. And again, this plant’s football fields long, and a lot of his coworkers described the deterioration that occurred with respect to the insulation and that insulation fell.

Beginning of the late ’70s, it just would fall all the time and it would hit the employees as they’re doing their job. It would land on the floor, it would stay there. And then at some point, somebody came in and cleaned it up, but they weren’t cleaning it the way they were supposed to clean it. They just used a broom or compressed air or something of that nature.

He told us that in the warehouse where they had all these tires stored, I mean, just hundreds if not thousands of tires, and all this insulation would fall on the tires and then they’d have to clean the tires off of course before they send them out to wherever they’re going next. And there was just a lot of exposure that way.

And then in this particular instance, the gentleman got it on his clothes, he took it home. His wife unknowingly washed his clothes for years and years and years, and it had asbestos on it, and she developed mesothelioma many years down the road and didn’t really understand how that could have happened. And when we got into it, we figured out, well, this is what happened. She was exposed through her husband’s clothes and he didn’t even work with the asbestos. It was just something that was there that was so ubiquitous in the plant that it couldn’t be avoided.

What Should Former Employees Who Have Mesothelioma Do?

John: So, if you were an employee of General Tire at that time and now you have mesothelioma, what should you do next?

Paul: So, employees are in a bit of a unique situation because unfortunately, they can’t file a lawsuit against General Tire. They may not be able to file a lawsuit or a workers’ compensation claim, but there may be reasons why they can’t do that either.

But that having been said, there are parties that are still out there who insulated the plant, and we’ve talked about a company named Triangle Insulation in past situations. Triangle was an insulating company that did a lot of work out there. So Triangle can be pursued and some of the gasket companies can still be pursued and some of the valve companies can be pursued.

It’s very important, John, that when this diagnosis comes through. And we realize that unfortunately, if mesothelioma is what you’ve been diagnosed with, it’s a horrible cancer, it’s a fatal cancer, most people will die from that cancer within a couple of years of diagnosis. There’s a lot of things that people have to deal with when they’re diagnosed with that disease and certainly making sure that you’re getting the best medical care that you need, that you are comfortable with the decisions that your doctors are making, that you’re making with the doctors. There’s surgeries, there are radiation, chemotherapy, there’s a lot of things medically people have to deal with.

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of time to pursue a claim, and it’s very important to talk to a lawyer. It’s very important to determine what your legal rights are, whether you have a case or not, and who can be pursued and whether it’s worth it for you and your family. I think it’s very important for people to work with lawyers that not only know asbestos cases because this is a niche practice that I have and certainly others have, but also to work with lawyers that have worked on this plant before.

So, we’ve litigated at least a half a dozen cases from the General Tire Mayfield plant. We have a lot of evidence developed already. I mean, it may very well be that all we really need to do is get your story, how you were exposed, what you did, and we’re off and running and ready to file a claim and ready to do everything we can do to protect your rights and to help you and your family. We want you to be able to testify so that you can tell your story. We want you to be able to participate in the lawsuit, and to the extent that there’s a recovery, we certainly want for you to be able to reap the benefit of the recovery that’s been made on your behalf.

So, it’s very important to determine what your legal rights are, talk to somebody who really understands these cases, somebody that’s worked specifically related to this plant before, and just make sure that you feel comfortable with that person. Your lawyer’s your advocate, your lawyer is the person that’s going to fight for you, the person that’s going to make a lot of critical decisions that are going to impact not just you, but your family, and have an impact for perhaps many years after you’ve passed.

So, you want to make sure that you feel super comfortable with that person and that you feel like that person’s going to fight for you and do what’s necessary to make it right or make it as right as it possibly can with the understanding that there’s no substitute for your health, but certainly recovery can be had that will help ease some of the burden from you and your family while you’re going through this terrible disease.

Do You Have To File A Claim Against Worker’s Compensation?

John: You mentioned that in Kentucky, an employee can’t directly sue their employer, they have to go through workers’ compensation. In the case of that wife of an employee, was she able to file a claim directly against General Tire or Continental Tire because she wasn’t a direct employee of the company?

Paul: That’s a great question, John. The answer is yes. Because she wasn’t employee, she has no right to file a worker’s compensation claim, and the company has no right to assert that as a defense. So in those situations where the person diagnosed was a spouse, like in this situation, lots of times we see children of employees who are diagnosed, none of those claims are precluded by workers’ compensation, which means that in addition to insulating companies, manufacturers, distributors, other responsible parties, a suit can be filed against General Tire’s successor, Continental.

And generally speaking, that’s a good source of recovery for the plaintiffs, the injured people in that situation because General Tire was in the best position probably to protect people. That’s not to say that all these other parties don’t have responsibility because they do, but General Tire could have done some of the things that OSHA and even Kentucky said you ought to do, which is provide special clothing, provide locker rooms where people can change from their work clothes to their street clothes and back and forth, provide laundry services so that it doesn’t get taken home. A whole bunch of people would still be alive today if companies would’ve taken that part of their responsibility as an employer serious.

In addition to the spouses and children, there’s also all kinds of employees of contractors and other kinds of employees that went in and worked in those facilities. So, they’re not limited to a suit just against the manufacturers and distributors, they can also pursue a case against General Tire as well or Continental as well. But employees, unfortunately, they’re limited and we just have to work a little harder and pursue it in a little bit different theory and parties for those people, but there’s recovery out there to be had.

Is There a Statute of Limitations for Mesothelioma Cases?

John: And then finally, is there a statute of limitations on filing a case against General Tire, or again, those insulators, et cetera?

Paul: Absolutely. Under Kentucky law, you have a year from the date that you know or should know that you’re injured and know or should know the cause of the injury. So theoretically, those dates can be different, but our rule of thumb, if we can control it, and we can almost certainly control it unless somebody comes in to us more than a year after their diagnosis, but if somebody comes to us a couple months after diagnosis, we file well within that timeframe. If given the choice and opportunity, we would never wait for a full year from even the diagnosis to pursue a case.

And then there’s a lot of different reasons. I mean, first you don’t want to put a judge in a position where the judge has to make a decision as to whether it was timely. If you file it within the date of diagnosis, no issue there, no judge whatever would ever dismiss a case. But after that point, the judge might feel that even if he or she wants to allow you to continue your case, he or she may feel like they had no choice and then they really don’t under certain circumstances because the law is very unforgiving in that regard. There’s no such thing as excusable neglect or not knowing. It’s just it can be very harsh.

The other reason why you want to file the case as quickly as possible is from what I alluded to a moment ago. It’s very unfortunate, but the survival statistics aren’t very good beyond two years and sometimes can be much more dire. And the best likely, the best evidence of exposure that we’re ever going to have is from the victim himself or herself. They’re going to be able to tell us what work they did. They’re going to be able to tell us where they worked, how frequently they did it. Certainly, if something happens and you’re unable to testify, we can get that information from other people. But other people have a different, unique, less thorough memory of what it is that you did.

So, we don’t want to waste any time there. We want to give you the opportunity to tell your story, but if something happens and you wait seven, eight, nine months and come to us a little bit later than what we’d like, we’ll still be able to get that case filed and still be able to do everything that we do to try to be successful. If you come to us after the one year diagnosis, we’re still going to try our best to make sure that we can succeed for you, but it’s going to be harder because then we’re left not in our hands, but we’re left in the hands of things that we can’t control.

So, talk to a lawyer immediately, get that case filed as soon as possible, and try not to get anywhere near that year.

John: All right. Well, that’s great information. Paul, I appreciate you speaking with me today. Thank you.

Paul: Thanks, John, I appreciate it.

Information About 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.