“Another case where unfortunately I didn’t get to meet the victim. He passed away before he was signed up, but I did get to work with his family and I learned a lot about him. He was a very, very family-oriented guy. Apparently, he was very rough around the edges. I saw a photo of him in his biker jacket and he looked like a very tough guy, but it seemed like under all of it, he was a very sweet guy that loved his family.
And he was a diesel mechanic, meaning he worked on big rigs like the big trucks you see driving on the freeway. And a lot of the automotive components that are in those vehicles—so like the brakes, engine gaskets, clutches—those contain asbestos. And that’s what he did on a daily basis was he was working on brakes. He occasionally removed clutches. And what he was primarily responsible for was completely overhauling engines. And so he was changing every gasket in the engine, cleaning it out. And when you remove those gaskets, it releases respirable asbestos dust. And that’s just one way that he was exposed to asbestos.
Also, if you remove and replace a brake, especially a brake drum back in the day, those typically contained asbestos and even disc brakes later on, but he was working on that day in and day out. Unfortunately, he couldn’t testify in the case because he passed away, but he had a lifelong friend who was a co-worker of his for a decent amount of years. And this man testified on behalf of one of his good friends. He talked all about the work, talked about how this guy was an expert in working on engines, really knew what he was doing, was really responsible, and if he knew there was asbestos in the product, there’s no way this guy would have ever worked with it. If he knew that it was harmful and that it was there, he would have switched his career probably.
We had great results on that. Another case where it settled in advance of trial. The defendants didn’t seem to want to argue that one in front of a court.”
