Asbestos and Mesothelioma at IBM in Lexington, Kentucky

John Maher talks with Paul Kelley about the IBM facility in Lexington, Kentucky, including how asbestos may have been present in the building and possibly in certain manufacturing processes. They also explain how workers may have been exposed and why anyone diagnosed with mesothelioma should act quickly.

John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher. 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 exposure at IBM in Lexington, Kentucky. Welcome, Paul.

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

IBM Facility History in Lexington, Kentucky

John: I’m doing well, thanks. Paul, tell us a little bit about IBM and their facility in Lexington, Kentucky, and when they operated.

Paul: Sure, so, I’m confident that everybody’s probably pretty familiar with IBM, particularly with what IBM does today. But of course, its flagship product for many years was typewriters. And so the plant in Lexington…so for those from that area, it was located on New Circle Road. It was opened in 1956 and was a massive facility. Predominantly one building, but there are a couple other smaller buildings, but the facility, I can’t even tell you how many hundreds of thousands of square feet it was.

And for many years, when it opened in 1956 through the 1990s, it manufactured typewriters. It manufactured probably the most famous typewriter for offices called the Selectric typewriter. And my dad, just as a little tidbit, my dad was an attorney as well. And I remember as a kid going into his office and when the new typewriters came in and they had these little word processor components, those were the Selectric typewriters.

And, later on, they made some other things like keyboards and some other computer components. And then later on in 1991, IBM conducted a series of complicated corporate transactions and essentially spun off to a company called Lexmark. And now that same plant has been owned and operated by Lexmark since 1991, and it’s expanded into the numerous computer and printer related products. It’s my understanding that at one point, the IBM plant in Lexington had 6,000 employees, which made it probably the most significant employer in Lexington and one of the most significant employers all throughout the state of Kentucky. It was a big facility and had a lot of people coming through the plant, and it’s been around for 70 years now.

Where Was Asbestos Located at IBM?

John: All right. So talk a little bit about IBM and how they’re related to asbestos and mesothelioma cases.

Paul: Sure. So I think IBM probably had asbestos in two different ways. It certainly was a plant built in 1956. Plants built in 1956, certainly anything before the early 70s, were going to be loaded with asbestos. And what we’ve discovered over the course of the years is this plant was no different. It had asbestos insulation throughout the facility on piping, duct work. It had gaskets. It had electrical components, wires, and cable. It had fireproofing that was throughout the facility. Sometimes this would be in the form of spray-on fireproofing.

It had floor tile, ceiling tiles, roofing materials that contained asbestos. Sometimes there were walls that were located in the facility that had something called Transite. Transite was an asbestos material and people could be exposed to those materials in various ways. So a lot of construction materials were located there, and those materials were used just so the plant could generally function.

We also have pretty solid evidence, and I will put the caveat that this isn’t 100% confirmed, but we believe that some of the products there were made with asbestos. And I’ve discovered some information that there was a molding operation there, and we’ve talked about molding on some prior podcasts, but frequently phenolic molding compounds contained asbestos.

Well, the Selectric typewriter was made with predominantly plastic. It’s a plastic material. And we’ve had descriptions of people who utilized molding compounds to mold products in the facility. And I believe that the Selectric typewriter was likely made with asbestos containing components and likely made with asbestos containing components at that plant.

And certainly what those components would be would range from the casing, and also what made this electric typewriter unique is it had the little plastic ball. If you’ve ever seen a typewriter, the key strikes this ball that’s in the center and the ball keeps going from left to right, depending on what you’re doing. And that ball was made of plastic, and we believe that that ball may have been made with asbestos containing component parts. So people who worked in production, we believe, had an opportunity for exposure to asbestos, and then certainly all of the asbestos building and construction materials that were in the plant.

How Workers May Have Been Exposed to Asbestos at IBM

John: And so how and when were employees potentially exposed to asbestos at the plant?

Paul: So, certainly, anybody that was involved in that molding process would be exposed. Anyone who was nearby the molding process would be exposed. When I say nearby, I mean within a few thousand yards, typically that dust proliferates throughout the plant. So that would be certainly a way that anybody could be exposed.

But certainly anybody involved in maintenance, anybody involved in construction, renovations in the facility, anybody that potentially was present when materials were removed, disturbed in any way. So a couple of my most recent cases were for people who were HVAC workers. And there was a point in time in the ’70s where they came into the plant and they ripped out all of the duct work, and the prior duct work was insulated, and we believe that the insulation contained asbestos. All of that duct work is in places where there are other asbestos containing components.

Pipe insulation was a very common asbestos product. It was in virtually every industrial building built prior to 1972. And so when a HVAC worker or an electrician or a pipe fitter or an insulator, when they’re in the area, what we call above the ceilings — everybody I think is probably familiar with the drop ceiling — and so that’s where they hide all the stuff. And so the pipe insulation, the duct insulation, frequently the electrical components, but even if the electrical components didn’t, the electricians are working right in the same space where asbestos is located.

You hear about just general laborers that came in and had to take out the floor tile that was in the plant. And everybody’s seen that kind of floor tile. I mean, it’s all over buildings today, it’s just not asbestos anymore. And that stuff…just pop it up, scrape it up and break it up and that can release significant levels of asbestos. Certainly ceiling tiles, perhaps not as easy to be exposed because usually those just pop out, but sometimes those tiles would get cut, whether it was by maintenance people or contractors that came in to work in the facility.

Now, obviously back in the day, in the 1950s, when the plant was built, the insulators who insulated the piping and the machinery, duct work, those people would have definitely been exposed. Anyone who was present during that process would have been exposed and renovations occurred all the time.

I mean, that was something that I dealt with, with one of my previous clients, and anytime renovation occurs there is a substantial likelihood that a lot of these asbestos containing materials would be disturbed. And that’s the problem. When asbestos is disturbed, that’s how people are exposed. When a piece of pipe insulation is torn off, it proliferates dust throughout the air. You can’t see all that dust. You can see some of it. You can’t see all the dust.

If you are seeing dust from a product that contains asbestos, you know that you are experiencing a significant and deadly exposure to asbestos, but a huge problem is the dust that you don’t see, the dust that you can’t see. And a lot of that dust was located in a facility like that just by virtue of the asbestos being there and deteriorating, or a random one-off maintenance project where they tore a piece of asbestos insulation off of a pipe, or off of a piece of duct work, or off of a piece of equipment.

The biggest problem with asbestos that I think is just unknown to a lot of people is, once it’s in a space, it’s there for a long, long time. You can’t clean asbestos with a normal household vacuum cleaner. You can’t clean asbestos with a shop vac. Once it gets on the floor, once it gets on a piece of equipment, it’s in a plant and there’s a concept called re-entrainment.

And when asbestos gets on the floor or gets on somebody’s clothing, gets on a piece of equipment, if there’s any activity at all that causes a re-entrainment of the product…and people know what we’re talking about. Is there anything more frustrating than when you’re sweeping the floor in your own house and you’re trying to get it into the little dust pan and it doesn’t all come up, and one of the kids comes by and stirs some up, or a pet or something. Well, it’s the same concept, except it’s not environmental dust, it’s asbestos dust.

So virtually anybody who spent any time in the facility, particularly before the 1990s, would have likely experienced some level of exposure. Now, the people that would experience a higher exposure would be people that were involved either in the molding process or people that have somehow had to have direct interaction with the pipe insulation, duct insulation, gaskets, the Transite, the floor tile, the ceiling tile, and that’s usually going to be either maintenance workers or contractors that have specific specialties in working with those materials. But of course, the problem is that those crafts in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s, they didn’t know what they were dealing with. They knew how to do the work, but they didn’t know that they were dealing with asbestos.

And that’s quite frankly why we’ve had this huge epidemic of blue collar workers in this country being exposed to asbestos materials because it was all over the place, and places like IBM, and IBM knew it, and the folks who were responsible for designing the building knew it, and maybe the big construction companies that built the plant knew it, but the poor men and women who worked in the plants, they didn’t know it.

Were Companies Required to Remove Asbestos?

John: And has there never been a time when companies like IBM were required to remove any of the asbestos that is in their plants?

Paul: Never required to remove, at least not wholesale. There have been some requirements that if you’re doing a major renovation, demolition, construction, tear out, that they make sure that they know where the asbestos is and that they inform people who may be exposed that it’s there, but there’s never really been a requirement to remove it. Since the early 1970s, thermal insulation is not a thing anymore, but even in 1989, EPA tried to just ban asbestos, the use of asbestos, outright in the United States, and it was defeated because industry strongly opposed it.

And there was a push more recently to ban asbestos, but for political reasons that we don’t want to discuss today, those policies may or may not come through over the next few years, but there has never been a requirement that they absolutely wholesale have to remove asbestos. They do have to protect people and to not overexpose people to asbestos.

Paul: And that’s existed in Kentucky that requirements existed since at least 1956, which happens to coincide with the year that this plant opened. But to be perfectly frank and blunt, the biggest problem that I’ve seen over the years is industry not honoring and respecting and following, implementing the regulations that would have precluded a lot of people from being diagnosed with the cancer that we continue to see people with today.

What to Do After Mesothelioma Exposure at IBM or Lexmark

John: So what should you do now if you did work at the IBM or Lexmark facility and now you have mesothelioma?

Paul: Move quickly on a lot of things. Mesothelioma in particular is a devastating diagnosis. It is a terminal cancer. There is no known cure. There are a lot of treatments for it that can prolong people’s lives and certainly improve the quality of life, but there is no cure for it. And there’s a lot of different possibilities for treatment that people can do depending on when they were diagnosed, what their general physical condition was, their age, and that sort of thing.

So you’ve got a lot to deal with, or a lot of decisions to make, with you and your family and your medical team as to how you will treat the cancer. But where I come in and what I do, the legal part of it, is we don’t have a lot of time and we only…in Kentucky, we only have a year from the date that we know we have a disease and we know or should know what the cause of that disease is, to pursue legal action.

One year seems like a reasonable period of time, but it moves pretty quickly, particularly when you have people who may have been exposed, not just at IBM, but at a whole lot of different places and in a lot of different ways, and you have to be able to figure it out. Because the prognosis for people with mesothelioma is not very good.

6 to 18 months is kind of what medical and scientific literature indicates at this point in time. We want you to be able to participate in your case, you want to be able to participate in your case, your testimony concerning where, when, how you were exposed, what information that you were provided, the best information of that’s going to come from you.

We can certainly get some of that from coworkers and family, but you’re the best source of information concerning your exposure and, bar none, you are the best source of information concerning how this disease impacts you, what your concerns are, what your fears are, what difficulties you have as a result of this cancer, what pain you experience, the treatment you’re receiving and how that treatment impacts you.

And so we want people to be able to tell their stories and let judge, jury, defendants, anybody, experts, understand how you were exposed and how this cancer impacts you. And because you don’t have a lot of time to pursue your legal rights, and because, from a health standpoint, there may come a situation, a point, where you can’t tell your story, you need to move quickly.

And we frequently are hired on a Monday, and later that day we are collecting records, we are searching our database for information because we know a lot about locations like IBM and other places that people may have been exposed, and we are conducting our investigation as soon as possible, and we’re going to get that lawsuit filed as soon as possible. And the quicker that lawsuit gets filed, then our one and only focus turns to getting your deposition in and then getting your case to trial.

I mean, ideally, you’ll be able to be present at trial and you won’t be just looking at a video camera telling your story. You’ll be looking the jury in the eye and telling the jury how you were exposed and how this impacts you. So I hate to tell people that you just can’t sit on your hands and try to figure out exactly how you’re going to treat your cancer, because by the time you get done with some of the treatments, six, seven, eight months down the road may have passed. And while I’m confident that I can still get your case filed, it’s just not going to increase the likelihood that you’ll be able to participate in the case. And that’s what we want, that’s what you want. And quite frankly, that’s what I think justice requires – your participation. And the jury wants to hear from the victim and not other people.

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

Paul: Thank you, John. I appreciate it.

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.