Substantial Verdict Upheld Against Mesothelioma Victim’s Former Employers

BATON ROUGE, LA – Just fifteen months after winning a substantial verdict against contractors Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group, Inc. and Jacobs Constructors, Inc. on behalf of a mesothelioma victim, Baron & Budd, P.C. today announced the verdict has been affirmed by the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal. The former welder and pipefitter contracted mesothelioma as a result of asbestos exposure while he worked for the defendants.

The plaintiff was represented at trial by attorneys Cameron Waddell and Jody Alderman of Baton Rouge’s LeBlanc & Waddell. Baron & Budd’s Renée Melançon was appellate counsel for the plaintiff.

“Our client’s employers tried repeatedly to evade responsibility for his injuries, but these committed attorneys convinced the trial court, and then the Court of Appeal, that these companies were responsible to their employees for exposing them to dangerous levels of asbestos,” said Russell W. Budd, managing shareholder of Baron & Budd.

In addition to confirming that Louisiana’s 1952 Workers’ Compensation Act does not cover mesothelioma and so does not bar suits by mesothelioma victims against their employers, the Court of Appeal ruled that the plaintiff’s case was not barred by Louisiana’s 10-year preemptive period to bring claims for injuries arising from deficiencies in the construction of improvements to real property. The court ruled that, because the plaintiff’s employer—a contractor who did major “turn-key” construction jobs at a chemical plant—had control over the construction at the time of his asbestos exposure, his claims against his employer fell within the statute’s exception and were not untimely.

The dangers of asbestos exposure, particularly to those like the plaintiff working in close proximity to asbestos insulation, were widely known in industry circles for decades before the plaintiff went to work for the defendants. “Our client’s employers did not protect him from the clouds of asbestos in which he worked, even though basic prevention methods have been known since the 1930s,” said Melançon. “This man has had to accept that the disease that will kill him was preventable, but his employers did nothing to protect him.”

The effects of asbestos exposure, including the onset of diseases like mesothelioma and asbestosis, can take decades to surface. The plaintiff worked as a pipefitter from 1965 until 1985. He was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2006 and continues to fight his disease from his home in Ponchatoula, Louisiana.