A verdict of $20 million has been awarded to the family of a former Navy ship fitter who died earlier this year of asbestos mesothelioma.

The plaintiff served in the Navy during the Vietnam War where he was assigned duty as a pipe fitter and ship fitter aboard three vessels, and later at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. Following his discharge, he worked as a steamfitter in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

During his time both in the Navy and as a civilian steam fitter he came into contact with asbestos, especially as he worked closely with boiler makers when they were removing asbestos insulation from boilers, the asbestos mesothelioma lawsuit states.

The plaintiff was diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma in early 2012 and died of the disease when aged 72.  The jury took two hours to find the defendant, Burnham LLC, based in Lancaster, PA, liable for acting with reckless disregard for the plaintiff’s safety.

The asbestos mesothelioma settlement was awarded to the plaintiff’s children and grandchildren who survived him.

Dangers of Asbestos Exposure

Asbestos is a mineral fiber. It can be positively identified only with a special type of microscope. In the past, asbestos was added to a variety of products to strengthen them and to provide heat insulation and fire resistance.

For years, boilers built by Burnham Corporation and other manufacturers contained asbestos, a material that was commonly used for a variety of purposes throughout the ship -building and telecommunications industries since it worked as an effective flame retardant. Asbestos was used to control heat, and workers may have come in contact with this material on everything from boilers to pipes and even insulation.

Employers such as Burnham have known about the dangers of asbestos exposure since at least the early 1940s. Unfortunately, since the 1970s, the health risks associated with asbestos have come to light; we now know that the fibers in the mineral that make it so strong and so heat-resistant also make it deadly.

When products containing asbestos begin to break down from age, or when they are cut in the manufacturing or repair process, asbestos particles can be released into the air. If a person breathes that dust, the particles can become lodged in his or her lung tissue and cause the formation of deadly respiratory diseases like mesothelioma cancer and lung cancer.

From studies of people who were exposed to asbestos in factories and shipyards, we know that breathing high levels of asbestos fibers can lead to an increased risk of:

• Asbestos lung cancer
• Mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the chest and the abdominal cavity
• Asbestosis, in which the lungs become scarred with fibrous tissue

The risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma increases with the number of asbestos fibers inhaled. People who get asbestosis have usually been exposed to high levels of asbestos for a long time. The symptoms of these diseases do not usually appear until about 20 to 30 years after the first exposure to asbestos.

According to court testimony, people who worked with Burnham’s asbestos-containing products say they were never warned about the health risks associated with asbestos. Without knowing it, workers consistently put their health at risk, sometimes for decades or even their entire careers.