85-Year-Old’s Lawsuit Highlights Challenges of Mesothelioma Claims
Because there’s no question that exposure to asbestos causes malignant mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other serious illnesses, many victims believe that seeking compensation should yield quick results. But asbestos cases are challenging, in large part because the illness appears so long after exposure. This point was made clear in a recent case that pitted an 85-year-old lung cancer victim against a pump manufacturer whose products he had worked with decades earlier.
Pump Manufacturer Points to Memory Lapse as Reason to Dismiss Asbestos Case
Like many mesothelioma and asbestos-related disease victims, John Gonder was diagnosed with lung cancer more than four decades after his exposure, when he was in his eighties. Despite his advanced age, he was able to recall specifics of the asbestos-containing products he was exposed to between 1970 and 1990 when he was an inspector for Con Edison. Mr. Gonder submitted to a deposition a year before his death, citing specific details of the sites where he’d worked forty years earlier, the products he worked with, and more. Included in his list of products were pumps made by manufacturer Milton Roy.
Both lung cancer and mesothelioma are diseases that leave victims weak, and the treatments that patients undergo to extend survival can be debilitating. The company went beyond asserting that the pumps they provided to Mr. Gonder’s job sites did not contain any asbestos-contaminated parts: they also asked for the case to be dismissed because he had failed to specify their company’s name in his deposition, even though the evidence he had submitted in support of his claim explicitly named them. They showed no sympathy for his age or his condition.
Judge Denies Asbestos Pump Manufacturer’s Request in Lung Cancer Case
Justice Adam Silvera of the Supreme Court of New York County serves on the New York Asbestos Litigation Court, and he hears many asbestos-related claims filed by lung cancer and mesothelioma victims. After listening to Milton Roy’s argument against allowing Mr. Gonder’s case to be heard, the judge ruled that the case should be allowed to move forward.
His reasoning referenced a frequent challenge in mesothelioma cases: That Mr. Gonder had been deposed when he was ill, elderly, and just a year from death. He pointed out that even under those circumstances, the victim had provided “clear and unequivocal details regarding his work history from approximately forty-five years ago.” Because Mr. Gonder had been able to provide specifics about the locations of worksites, his role, and the category of products he’d been exposed to, the judge decided that the case should advance to a jury to decide.
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