{"id":3010,"date":"2022-03-03T10:26:47","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T10:26:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/?page_id=3010"},"modified":"2022-03-03T10:26:47","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T10:26:47","slug":"sf-jury-awards-over-million-to-engineer-with-asbestosis","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/court-successes\/cases-in-2003\/sf-jury-awards-over-million-to-engineer-with-asbestosis\/","title":{"rendered":"SF Jury Awards Over $1.1 Million To Engineer With Asbestosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asbestos Exposure from Laundry Equipment<\/h1>\n
\n

San Francisco Jury Awards Over $1.1 Million to Engineer with Asbestosis<\/h2>\n

San Francisco, CA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 May 19, 2003 \u2014 A San Francisco jury awarded over $1.1 million to a stationary engineer suffering from asbestosis due to his\u00a0exposure to asbestos<\/a>. A serious respiratory disease, asbestosis is a\u00a0scarring of the lungs<\/a>\u00a0caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers.<\/p>\n

The plaintiff worked at commercial laundries owned by Community Linen. For 35 years, his job included maintaining laundry equipment. He removed and replaced asbestos\u2013containing binders, pads, and covers\u2014items manufactured by the defendants, American Laundry Machinery, Inc., and its predecessor companies.<\/p>\n

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ernest H. Goldsmith presided over the seven\u2013week trial. The jury heard testimony from the plaintiff\u2019s experts about asbestos, medical diagnosis, epidemiology, and industrial hygiene. The plaintiff\u2019s witnesses also included his 87\u2013year old former employer and a co\u2013worker. Both the plaintiff and his co\u2013worker produced and described American Laundry Machinery product manuals that detailed the asbestos in the company products.<\/p>\n

During discovery, American Laundry Machinery, Inc., had denied that its laundry equipment incorporated asbestos\u2013containing materials. However, the company did not produce a corporate witness during the trial and called only one expert witness. American Laundry Machinery, Inc. also denied that it was the legal successor in interest to earlier versions of the same company dating to the early 1900s. The plaintiff produced evidence that the companies were indeed the same entity.<\/p>\n

The jury awarded the plaintiff $108, 000 in economic damages and $1 million in non\u2013economic damages. This is the first judgment against American Laundry Machinery, Inc. in an asbestos case.\u201dWe are pleased with the verdict,\u201d said Patricia Henle, an attorney for the plaintiff. \u201cI think the jury could tell that our client was an honest, deserving man. Defense counsel\u2019s attacks on him were very much unwarranted. The jury also understood that the defendant was not\u2014in a manner of speaking\u2014coming clean in its defense approach, which ran the full spin cycle from \u2018we are not the successor company involved in this\u2019 to claiming that the plaintiff was not sick. It is refreshing to see a jury be \u2018stronger than dirt\u2019\u2014a concept this defendant understands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patricia Henle of the Law Offices of Patricia E. Henle, San Francisco (on contract with Brayton Purcell LLP), and Gilbert Purcell of\u00a0Brayton Purcell LLP<\/a>\u00a0in Novato, California, represented the plaintiff. The defendants were represented by Gary Drummond and David Gifford of Stevens, Drummond & Gifford of Walnut Creek, California.<\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asbestos Exposure from Laundry Equipment San Francisco Jury Awards Over $1.1 Million to Engineer with Asbestosis San Francisco, CA\u00a0\u2014 May 19, 2003 \u2014 A San Francisco jury awarded over $1.1 million to a stationary engineer suffering from asbestosis due to his\u00a0exposure to asbestos. A serious respiratory disease, asbestosis is a\u00a0scarring of the lungs\u00a0caused by the inhalation of asbestos fibers. The plaintiff worked at commercial laundries owned by Community Linen. For 35 years, his job included maintaining laundry equipment. He removed and replaced asbestos\u2013containing binders, pads, and covers\u2014items manufactured by the defendants, American Laundry Machinery, Inc., and its predecessor companies. San [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"parent":1243,"menu_order":166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3010","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3010\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braytonlaw.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}