The now defunct Covil Corporation must pay a widow $32.7 million for its  role in the death of a man who died of cancer caused by asbestos exposure at the tire plant where he worked for 20 years, a federal judge in North Carolina has ruled.

Ann Finch filed the lawsuit on behalf of her late husband, Franklin “Doc” Finch, a mold changer regulary exposed to asbestos from “insulated steam pipe that led to and from the presses,” according to businessinsurance.com.

Covil had sold “virtually all of the insulation, including pipe insulation, used during construction of the tire plant,” the website reported, and “more than 7,000 feet of asbestos-containing pipe insulation remained in the plant 15 years after its construction.” The company went out of business in 1991.

In her decision, U. S. District Judge Catherine Eagles acknowledged that during the trial, pipe insulation supplier Covil was not portrayed as a “model corporate citizen” but a plaintiff, she said, “isn’t legally required to downplay her arguments or sugarcoat a defendant’s conduct.”

The jury reached its verdict after a five-day trial in October and two hours of deliberation. The panel found that Covil’s negligence caused Doc Finch’s death by failing to warn him of the potential dangers of asbestos exposure, Law360 reported.

The judge found that Ann Finch presented sufficient evidence to show that her husband died of mesothelioma, a slow-developing cancer caused by asbestos.

A month after the trial, lawyers representing Covil filed a brief arguing that the jury’s award eclipsed other recent wrongful death awards in North Carolina, “including decedents with a longer life expectancy than Finch, who was 78 at the time of his death,” according to Law360.

In her decision affirming the jury’s decision, the judge referenced a doctor who testified that Finch was “an unusually healthy 78-year-old man when he first developed symptoms of mesothelioma and would have lived another 13 or 14 years if he hadn’t developed the disease.”

Judge Eagles agreed that the jury’s award was substantial, but said she found the evidence presented at trial to be “compelling and virtually uncontradicted.”

Overview of Asbestos Exposure Dangers

The American Cancer Society explains that mesothelioma is a rare form of lung cancer caused by asbestos exposure, which manifests in the mucus lining of the lungs. This occurs when asbestos fibers are released into the air and then swallowed or inhaled, with the fibers causing scarring.

Asbestos is a fibrous material that was popularly used for insulation, before the 1980s, for its fire and chemical resistant qualities. It was also used in a variety of other construction and manufacturing applications.

The federal government now has stringent policies regarding asbestos use, and requires companies to take precautions to prevent dangerous exposure levels.

This lawsuit is Finch v. Covil Corp., Case No. 1:16-cv-01077, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.