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East Palestine Justice

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 22:43:38 GMT

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One Company Sickened Thousands of Akron Rubber Workers with Decades of Lies

Wed, 07 Feb 2024 22:42:34 GMT

https://www.beaconjournal.com/story/news/2023/02/09/emtal-company-sicken-thousands-akron-rubber-work...

Attorney At Law

Mon, 23 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Working Together & Protecting Injured Workers

Sun, 22 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Paying the Price - In More Ways than One

Sat, 21 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Independent Contractor or Employee - Know the Difference

Thu, 19 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Flaws in the Workers’ Compensation System

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Workers’ Compensation & Social Security Payment Effects

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Inextinguishable

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Eggshell Worker and the Natural Deterioration Exception

Mon, 16 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Middle Class of Workers’ Compensation

Fri, 13 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Workers’ Compensation for Hearing Loss

Thu, 12 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

The Remnants of Intentional Tort

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

More than 1,300 damage claims filed on behalf of former Akron-area rubber, auto workers who suffered from asbestos exposure

Tue, 10 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Ed Meyer

Mary Ann Andrews felt she needed to honor the memory of her husband by attending a court hearing Monday morning.

James W. Andrews was a World War II Navy veteran who went on to work in Akron for 41 years as a welder at Goodyear. After battling various forms of cancer, he died in 2001 at age 73.

The Andrews case was among more than 1,300 damage claims filed in Summit County Probate Court on behalf of the heirs of Akron-area rubber and auto workers who died or developed serious illnesses from exposure to asbestos.

Following a June 15 article in the Beacon Journal about the court’s involvement in attempting to locate possible heirs, calls began pouring in.

Probate Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer said her office received more than 200 emails and calls in the past week. Local attorney Thomas Bevan, whose firm specializes in asbestos litigation, said his office received nearly 300.

Mary Ann Andrews was one of about 30 area residents who went to Monday’s hearing to begin the formal process of filling out paperwork for the asbestos-related claims.

“I think my husband would be satisfied and at peace,” she said afterward.

A fund totaling $80 million was set up in 2004 after insurance giant Travelers Cos. reached a settlement with attorneys representing tens of thousands of U.S. rubber workers, boilermakers and other laborers who had filed asbestos-related claims from as far back as the 1980s.

Travelers insured Johns Manville Corp. of Denver — the largest U.S. manufacturer of asbestos-containing products for more than half a century.

A lengthy series of appeals delayed payouts until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court in New York, where claims had been consolidated, ordered Travelers last summer to pay up.

Damage claims — no longer under legal challenge — range from $2,100 to $23,000, based on medical diagnoses for various asbestos-related illnesses.

In a PowerPoint presentation, Bevan laid out the long history of case litigation stemming, in large part, from corporate records obtained from U.S. tire makers, auto companies and other manufacturers that used asbestos in many of their product lines and plant insulation systems.

One such document, from the 1939 corporate archives of Goodyear, showed the company’s medical director issuing a warning at a meeting in Atlantic City, N.J., about what could be done to protect workers from the dangers of asbestos dust and the disease, asbestosis.

An internal company inspection report, in fact, “showed the operation was exceedingly dirty with asbestos [particles] the size of snowflakes drifting through the air in great concentrations,” Bevan said.

In that department alone, Bevan said, about 20 workers were afflicted years later by cancer and that most died of mesothelioma.

Lydia Herring, 78, attended the hearing on behalf of her brother, James “Jack” Herrin Sr., a former B.F. Goodrich worker who was diagnosed with asbestosis, she said, and died last month at age 90.

Since reading about the hearing in the newspaper, Herring said she has been trying to contact her brothers’ two sons, one in Florida and the other in Texas.

“I’m just here to make sure they get what they deserve, because my brother went through a whole lot of stuff from this,” she said.

The court appointed an independent administrator to begin finalizing paperwork that will go to the special claims company handling the payout fund.

Bevan said it is expected that the company will have reviewed all claims by early August.

Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com .

Summit County Probate Court looking for Akron rubber workers’ heirs for asbestos-related damage claims

Fri, 06 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Ed Meyer

Damage claims filed decades ago are heading for possible settlements in Summit County Probate Court for the heirs of hundreds of Akron rubber workers who died, or developed serious illnesses, from exposure to asbestos.

The court has scheduled a hearing at 9 a.m. June 22 for 500 cases already filed by a law firm specializing in Ohio asbestos litigation, and the number is expected to grow to more than 1,500 cases by the date of the hearing.

In the longest-running mass tort in U.S. history, scores of damage claims in this area were filed in the 1980s and ’90s by rubber workers and boilermakers from Akron’s major tire and engineering companies.

Settlement payouts are no longer under legal challenge, and the objective now, attorney Thomas W. Bevan said in a recent interview, is locating the heirs of the deceased workers to finalize the paperwork needed to distribute the money.

An $80 million fund was set up in 2004, Bevan said, when insurance giant Travelers Cos. Inc. reached a settlement agreement with Johns Manville Corp. of Denver — the largest U.S. manufacturer of asbestos-containing products for more than half a century.

The fund was to cover approximately 15,000 to 20,000 cases. About 14,000 of those were from Ohio, with the largest number coming from Summit County, Bevan said.

Nationwide, the claims were consolidated in federal bankruptcy court in New York, with former New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo serving as mediator.

Actual payouts, however, were delayed in a long series of appeals that reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Finally, after Travelers fought for over 10 years to avoid payment obligations, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ordered last summer that the company pay up.

“We’ve been out in limbo on this for 11 years now,” Bevan said, “but it’s finally going to happen, and we think we’re going to get these people compensated.”

Bevan said the settlement payouts range from $2,100 to $23,000, based on medical diagnoses for various asbestos-related illnesses.

Mesothelioma, one of the most serious illnesses, is a malignant tumor on the covering of the lungs or the lining of the abdominal cavity.

Summit County Probate Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer will conduct the June 22 hearing to officially begin the process of locating the heirs of the affected rubber workers.

Bevan said that most of the affected workers were employed at Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich, Firestone, General Tire, Mohawk, Goodyear Aerospace and Babcock & Wilcox.

“Ultimately, our goal is to find their heirs to distribute these funds. Unfortunately, we’re now talking about the children, grandchildren and nieces and nephews of these workers,” Bevan said.

Stormer said those who feel they might be family members of affected workers should attend the hearing or call the court at 330-643-2330 and ask for her assistant, Stephanie Wintermute.

Case information also is available by calling Bevan’s office in Hudson at 330-650-0088 or by sending an email to tbevan@bevanlaw.com .

Archives of the Mesothelioma Center show that one of the landmark claims filed against Johns Manville was by James O. Cavett, who worked around boiler and pipe insulation for 40 years beginning in 1939.

In his 1982 personal injury trial in Tennessee, Cavett testified that the asbestos dust from those Johns Manville-manufactured products was so bad, it looked like “someone dumped a barrel of flour on you.”

Cavett later died from asbestos-related lung cancer. A jury awarded his wife $800,000 for compensatory damages and $1.5 million for punitive damages.

Ed Meyer can be reached at 330-996-3784 or at emeyer@thebeaconjournal.com .

Voluntary Abandonment: Are Injured Workers Protected?

Thu, 05 Apr 2018 00:00:00 GMT