Asbestos and Mesothelioma at Continental Tire and General Tire in Mayfield, KY (Podcast)

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.