“I represented the family of a man who passed away. Unfortunately, I never got to meet him, but I met his family. He had an extended family where, unfortunately, his first wife passed away very young. They had a son together and then he remarried and had stepchildren, and they were all this one big family.
He was a career electrician. So first he was a union electrician, and then he moved out to California and became a private contractor, had a contractor’s license, had his own business, had his sons work for him, his stepsons. His exposure was that he was working inside of electrical panels. And a lot of these electrical panels, you’ll have them at your house—usually in California, they’re outside of the house, I know in the East Coast sometimes they’re in your garage—and they’re just panels that are sitting inside residential homes. You would never think they’re harmful.
They’re not harmful if you’re never working in them, but he would go in, he would work inside panels, mess around with arc chutes, abrade the panel with a drill or a brush, and it generates dust which he inhaled. And back in the day, the manufacturers made these backing insulation panels which included phenolic molding compounds which contain asbestos.
That case did not go to trial, but we got favorable settlements and they knew—as the defendants must have known—it was a well-worked-up case and they didn’t have any interest in going to trial.”
