Daughters Accuse Navy of Negligence in Mother’s Mesothelioma Death
Mesothelioma victim Geraldine Perkins was a Navy wife and mother to five daughters. After she died in 2020, her family set out to seek justice against those they blamed for exposing her to the asbestos that caused her illness. What makes their case unusual is that they filed suit against the U.S. Navy.
Navy’s Argument Against Being Named in Mesothelioma Lawsuit Rejected
Though veterans represent the majority of mesothelioma and asbestos deaths in the United States, the military is rarely named in personal injury lawsuits because of laws protecting government entities from liability. Mrs. Perkins’ daughters felt that the Navy’s failure to adhere to mandatory asbestos safety precautions was egregious enough to defeat that argument against suing the Navy, and their argument was compelling enough that they won the right to proceed.
The mesothelioma victim’s daughters point to decisions made by the navy fifty years ago, when their father, Harang Joseph Perkins, served as a Navy machinist at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. They cite both the dust he carried home on his clothing into their home and the lack of safety precautions taken to protect the neighborhood where Navy families lived from asbestos being blown downwind.
Navy Denies Negligence in Mesothelioma Death
In seeking justice for their mother’s death, the daughters point to asbestos safeguards that were put in place specifically to protect against the risk of mesothelioma. These safeguards included requiring monitoring of the air in the Navy Yard City where they had lived and providing disposable coveralls to workers like their father to prevent asbestos from being carried into the family’s home.
In its defense, the Navy argued that the safeguards were advisory and that they were exempt from liability under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and that the mother of five had not been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma. The victim’s family pushed to argue that had the Navy followed rules that they assert were mandatory, their mother would not have gotten sick. The court allowed the case to be heard so that the women could present their case to a jury.
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