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Posts by: Steven Kazan

Asbestos Fibers – Silent Invisible Killers

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asbestos fibersWhen it comes to protecting yourself and your loved ones from harm, asbestos fibers pose a challenging and very lethal threat.

If there’s a flame under a pot on the stove, you avoid putting your hand in that flame. If you are chopping vegetables with a sharp knife, you keep the sharp edge away from your fingers. When you are crossing a street, you wait for the walk sign and if a small child is with you, you hold their hand while you cross to protect them from possibly getting hit by a car.

But what do you do if there is a threat that you cannot see, feel, taste or smell? How do you protect yourself? How do you protect your family? You can’t. It’s impossible. That is the frightening truth about asbestos fibers.

Asbestos fibers can be 700 times smaller than a human hair, according to a Princeton University asbestos fact sheet. Some asbestos can be seen as dust but asbestos fibers can also be invisible to the human eye. You can’t see it. What’s more, it is odorless, tasteless and indestructible.

Asbestos fibers do not evaporate into air or dissolve in water, the US Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry reports. Small diameter fibers and particles may remain suspended in the air for a long time and be carried long distances by wind or water before settling down. Larger diameter fibers and particles tend to settle more quickly.

Asbestos fibers generally do not break down to other compounds and will remain virtually unchanged over long periods.

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the EPA have determined that asbestos is a human carcinogen and there is no safe level of exposure. Yet asbestos remains legal in the United States, tragically impacting families. An estimated 10,000 Americans die every year from preventable asbestos-caused diseases. “Without adequate regulations, Americans cannot determine or manage consumer, environmental and occupational asbestos risk,” states the Environmental Working Group, an organization that monitors the safety of U.S. products.

If you can’t see or smell or taste asbestos, how do you know if it is in a product you are working with? You don’t. Only the people who put it there know. In many cases we have handled, product manufacturers and distributors knew of asbestos contamination and withheld that information with tragic results. Workers and their family members, who were contaminated by secondary asbestos exposure, have been diagnosed with fatal asbestos-caused diseases. Let us know if this has happened to you.

Judge Decides Asbestos Lawsuit Should Go to Trial

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asbestos lawsuitAn old laboratory parts catalog provided an Alameda County Superior Court judge with sufficient evidence to enable Kazan Law clients James and Louise Leonard to take a step towards justice with their asbestos lawsuit.

Judge Jo-Lynne Q. Lee decided that their case Leonard v. Avantor Performance Materials, Inc., et al., (Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG13684263) could move forward to trial. The Leonards were represented by asbestos attorneys Ted Pelletier and Autumn Mesa.

James Leonard, now 71, was diagnosed with mesothelioma in May 2013.  He had worked as an operator in Dow Chemical’s research department from the early 1960s to the 1970s. There he built and operated laboratory tests that investigated whether new products were ready for mass production.

Mr. Leonard’s exposure to asbestos began half a century ago and continued for nearly 10 years during his work in test labs where he wrapped glass lab equipment with asbestos and then later scraped the asbestos from the lab’s glassware.  This asbestos wrap and other asbestos lab products were supplied by research laboratory product distributor VWR, along with other asbestos lab products.

At his deposition, defendants’ lawyers asked Mr. Leonard to identify the brand, manufacturer and supplier of the equipment and asbestos materials he used during the 1960s and early 1970s when he worked in labs. He couldn’t do it and said he could probably provide the information if he was shown a catalog.  But the defense lawyers did not show him a catalog.

VWR asked the court to throw out the asbestos lawsuit because Mr. Leonard did not have and could not obtain sufficient evidence necessary for trial.  But the judge agreed with us that defendants’ failure to show Mr. Leonard catalogs at deposition coupled with his later identification of asbestos products from VWR catalogs demonstrates that there is sufficient evidence for the case to be tried in court.

We applaud Judge Lee’s understanding that the public‘s safety is a serious matter that should not depend on a lawyer’s game of “Gotcha!” Manufacturers and distributors of dangerous products need to be held accountable for harming people even when those harmed cannot recall from memory all the 50 year-old details about each product.

Kazan Law Helps Sponsor USS Hornet Lunar Landing Anniversary

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USS HornetWhen the USS Hornet picked up astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr. and Michael Collins from the Pacific Ocean following the first lunar landing in July 1969, according to a local newspaper report, the crew welcomed them aboard with buttons that read “Hornet Plus Three.”

Now one of the three, 84-year-old Aldrin will return to the aircraft carrier this Saturday, July 26 to celebrate the 45th anniversary of what Armstrong famously described as “one giant leap for mankind.”

Kazan Law is proud to be one of the sponsors for this historical event as our way to honor the memory and service of our hundreds of clients who served in the USN and worked at US Naval shipyards all over the country.

“Splashdown 45” will take place all day July 26 and includes a talk by Aldrin, one of just 12 people to have walked on the moon and a lifelong advocate for space exploration.

The day’s activities aboard the ship, now a museum, also include a cocktail reception and dinner where attendees can meet the Apollo astronaut.

“President Richard Nixon was aboard the ship when Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins arrived wearing masks and jumpsuits because scientists feared they might have picked up “moon germs.” The astronauts were checked out in a mobile quarantine facility, a converted Airstream trailer in the ship’s hangar bay, where Nixon talked with them through a window as just about everyone across the world with a television watched,” the media article states.

The Hornet’s exhibits include the quarantine trailer used by the Apollo astronauts and the Sikorsky Sea King helicopter used to recover the Gemini 4 crew in June 1965, which carried out the first spacewalk by an American. The helicopter is featured in the 1995 film “Apollo 13.” The Hornet has been a museum at the former Alameda Naval Air Station since October 1998. Along with its role in the Apollo 11 and 12 missions, the aircraft carrier saw action during World War II and the Vietnam War. A registered state and national historic landmark, the ship is open to the public daily from 10 a.m. to 5.

“Splashdown 45” will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. July 26 followed by an evening reception from 6 to 10:30 p.m. aboard the USS Hornet, 707 W. Hornet Ave., Pier 3 in Alameda. For information, go to www.uss-hornet.org or call 510-521-8448.

Who Needs to Take Risk with an Asbestos Settlement?

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asbestos settlementThis is a guest post by Patrick Collins of Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers, Inc., the firm we hired to advise us on how to handle Kazan Law’s pension funds, our charitable foundation’s funds, and that some of our partners hired to advise them on personal money management.

The horrible byproduct of taking investment risk with your asbestos settlement is that losses may trigger considerable regret. Had you not taken the risk, the money would still be in your pocket. Damn.

Here are some propositions for you to consider regarding your asbestos settlement:

Proposition One: Wealthy folks don’t need to take investment risk. If you have a sufficient amount of money to support your spending and bequest needs, you don’t need to earn high investment returns. Billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett do not need to make risky investments—even if they never earn an additional dime, they will never be able to spend all of their wealth. This is why the super-rich give hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable causes. If you are super-rich, you don’t need more money. No need = no reason to take risk.

Proposition Two: The amount of risk you need to take with your asbestos settlement depends on the budget required to support a target standard of living for yourself and your family. All else equal, the higher your monthly budget, the more you may need to supplement existing wealth with money earned from future investment returns.

Proposition Three: It is not just your level of spending that determines the amount of investment risk that you need to take with your asbestos settlement. Rather, it is the level of spending relative to your existing wealth.   If you have a million dollars and want to live in a cabin in the woods and be self supporting, you probably do not need to send much, if any, of your current wealth into the future. If you have a million dollars and want to live like Donald Trump, you probably need to consider how to fund a great many future expenses.   A need for money to pay future bills = a reason to take investment risk today.

Proposition Four: Without risk there is no reward; taking risk with your asbestos settlement, however, does not guarantee that you will be rewarded. The whole idea of risk is that the value of an investment might shrink instead of grow. As a consequence, you must plan your investments carefully and take only the risk that you really need to take—not too much, not too little.

The first step is to figure out a budget—even if you do it on the back of an envelope. Write it down. Look at it. Chances are you’ve forgotten some important items so bump it up. Put in a margin for unexpected expenses. You are on your way to determining if you have the luxury of avoiding investment risk; or, if you need to become an investor.

The posts provided by Schultz Collins Lawson Chambers, Inc. [SCLC] convey information on basic investment concepts.  They are intended to facilitate prudent investment decision making.   They should not, however, be the sole factor in making investment decisions; and, they are not intended to act as advice or recommendations for any specific investor.    SCLC acts as Independent Investment Counsel and is a Registered Investment Advisor.  It does not provide legal, accounting or tax advice; and the opinions expressed in the posts are solely those of SCLC.  You can find additional information about SCLC, their personnel, and client services at www.schultzcollins.com. 

Related posts:

Your Asbestos Settlement and Investing

Your Asbestos Settlement and Financial Risk

 

Proving Previous Employers In An Asbestos Lawsuit

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asbestos lawsuitOne of the most important pieces of proof needed for a successful asbestos lawsuit is proof that you worked in a place where you were exposed to asbestos.

If you have been diagnosed with mesothelioma, it is absolutely because you were exposed to asbestos. Asbestos causes mesothelioma. It starts when asbestos fibers, so tiny they cannot be seen by the human eye, become airborne and get inhaled into the lungs. Construction and maintenance workers are all at increased risk because of asbestos lurking in building materials, especially older buildings. Auto repair and parts workers are similarly at risk from asbestos used in brake linings and brake pads.

But once asbestos fibers settle into the lungs and begin to cause damage, it can take years – decades, even – for the damage to make itself known through mesothelioma symptoms.

By the time you receive a mesothelioma diagnosis, it may be years since you worked for the company responsible for causing your disease. But to launch a successful asbestos lawsuit you are going to need to show solid proof that you in fact worked there.

How do you do that? In other circumstances, you might go to the IRS website to get transcripts of your tax returns. But the IRS only keeps returns for seven years. And the asbestos exposure that caused your mesothelioma probably goes back longer than that.

If you didn’t keep copies of your old W2 forms and/or tax returns – and why would you, you weren’t expecting to get mesothelioma – your best bet is the Social Security Administration. From their website, you can:

  • create an online account to access and print your employment history
  • locate the nearest Social Security Administration office to get in-person help
  • find their 800 number but we’ll give it to you here (warning – it’s a government agency so it’ll take patience to get through to an actual human) 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778)

Or you can contact our office. We have years of experience doing this and would be happy to help you retrieve this important information for your asbestos lawsuit.

Kazan Law Partner Frank Fernandez Honored By La Raza Centro Legal

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Frank FernandezKazan Law is proud to announce that our partner and colleague Francis “Frank” E. Fernandez has been honored by San Francisco La Raza Centro Legal, a group he helped found in 1973 while he was still in law school. La Raza Centro Legal is a community-based legal organization dedicated to empowering Latino, immigrant and low-income communities of San Francisco to advocate for their civil and human rights, combining legal services, organizing, advocacy, and social services to build grassroots power and alliances towards creating a movement for a just society.

The nonprofit organization’s new Frank Fernandez Endowment was announced at their 41st Anniversary Gala, an event co-sponsored by the Kazan Law Foundation. “The Frank Fernandez Endowment will allow us to hire an immigration attorney fellow in the coming year. Such is only possible because of the many donors who believe in our work and more importantly believe in honoring our founder Frank Fernandez,” said Carlos Osorio, La Raza’s Senior Law Program Coordinator. “We are truly honored that the Frank Fernandez Immigration Attorney Fellow will be possible.

Back in the old days, Frank was a labor lawyer working with the United Farm Workers of America, the group started by Cesar Chavez in the 1960s to support and empower Latino agricultural field workers. Frank’s experience working with the UFW and the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, the AFL-CIO, and the California Department of Occupational Health & Safety (Cal-OSHA), showed me he was a lawyer who like me also was passionate about protecting the rights of workers to work in safe healthy work environments., someone who not only would fight for justice for workers when their rights were violated but who also was skilled enough to win.

I knew Frank was a great fit for the kind of firm that we were trying to build. And I was right.  I did not realize then that by 2014, Latinos for would become California’s largest ethnic group, making up 39% of the state’s population, but that only 4.2% of the state’s lawyers would be Latino, as the California State Bar reported in a recent diversity study.  Diversity has always been one of the firm’s goals. We believe that our staff should reflect the people we serve.

I am proud of all that Frank has accomplished on behalf of victims of asbestos exposure through his work at Kazan Law. I am equally proud of his pioneering work on behalf of the Latino community in his founding and ongoing work with La Raza Centro Legal and of the support he has received from Kazan Law’s foundation for this vital organization.

The U.S. Asbestos Ban That Wasn’t

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asbestos banMy sister Laurie Kazan-Allen, a global anti-asbestos advocate based in London, just reminded me that July 12 marked the 25th anniversary of the asbestos ban that wasn’t. On that date in 1989, the EPA issued the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule.

In 1981, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had requested information from American companies regarding the asbestos content of their products. The result was the Asbestos Ban and Phase Out Rule. This was a common sense response to a lethal hazard that endangered public health. All types of asbestos fibers are known to cause fatal illnesses in humans.

However, in 1991, thanks to the efforts of the asbestos industry lobby, this rule was vacated and remanded (no longer exists and sent back) by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. As a result, most of the original ban on the manufacture, importation, processing, or distribution in commerce for the majority of the asbestos-containing products originally covered in the 1989 final rule was overturned. The case was Corrosion Proof Fittings v. EPA, 947 F.2d 1201 (5th Cir. 1991). This ruling which overturned a sane and sensible law leaves many consumer products still legally allowed to contain trace amounts of asbestos.

As a direct consequence of the appellate decision, a further 250,000+ tons of asbestos was used in the U.S. just between 1991 and 2010, according to data from the United States Geological Survey reported by Laurie in the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat newsletter.

Wikipedia clearly states, “The United States remains one of the few developed countries that hasn’t yet fully banned asbestos.” Despite several attempts by members of Congress to ban asbestos through legislative means, no ban has been adopted.

Examples from the EPA’s own website of asbestos-containing products not banned:

  • Cement corrugated sheet
  • Cement flat sheet
  • Clothing
  • Pipeline wrap
  • Roofing felt
  • Vinyl floor tile
  • Cement shingle
  • Millboard
  • Cement pipe
  • Automatic transmission components
  • Clutch facings
  • Friction materials
  • Disk brake pads
  • Drum brake linings
  • Brake blocks
  • Gaskets
  • Non-roofing coatings
  • Roof coatings

For me, this is a sad anniversary as I think of my clients who have died as a direct result of asbestos exposure. My firm often achieves awards and settlements of huge sums of money for asbestos victims because money seems to be the only thing that the companies responsible care about. While money helps balance the scales of justice, it does not compensate for the loss of a human life. And these companies continue to place no value on that.

Kazan Law Wins Precedent-Setting California Supreme Court Victory in Ford Asbestos Case

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ford asbestosAs reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the California Supreme Court has rejected Ford Motor Company’s petition for review of a published appellate decision in favor of Kazan Law clients Patrick and Sharon Scott (Scott v. Ford Motor Company (2014) 224 Cal.App.4th 1492).  Mr. Scott’s mesothelioma cancer was caused by prolonged asbestos exposure from automotive brakes.

Ford desired a “nationwide shield” from punitive damages liability for all asbestos exposure, merely because Ford’s executive offices are in Michigan and that state’s law does not allow punitive damages.  But the correct rule is that when a company exposes people to the risks associated with asbestos — or any other toxic substance or dangerous product — in California, a California jury has the right to apply punitive damages law to the case.

According to the media article about this new favorable development in the Scott case, it is “also a precedent for future cases.”

This will not be the first time that Kazan Law has set legal precedents in the area of asbestos law. But what matters to us most here is the justice that we are helping to achieve not only for the Scotts but for every one of us.

Otherwise big companies with out-of-state headquarters would get a free pass to sell defective products in California and every other state without fear of punishment. That would be a nightmare not just for mesothelioma victims but for everyone injured by driving a car with defective parts, using appliances that malfunctioned or products containing harmful substances, when the manufacturer ignored the health and safety of its customers

A jury awarded Patrick Scott $1.5 million in damages and legal costs against Ford in November 2012 after the trial team, led by Kazan Law’s asbestos attorneys Justin Bosl and Joseph Satterley, presented clear evidence that Ford had known of the asbestos exposure risks in their products before Mr. Scott did, and failed to warn him. The former Bay Area service station owner had sought damages from Ford for exposing him to brake-lining asbestos.

In March, a California appellate court upheld the $1.5 million judgment for the Scotts. Kazan Law of counsel Ted Pelletier led our appellate team in that phase.

Kazan Law associate Michael Stewart, who headed this current round of the Scott asbestos case, aptly summed up the California Supreme Court victory by saying, “The Scott decision will help to protect all types of consumers in California because the availability of punitive damages will encourage all manufacturers to design safer products and share hazard information.  It should not matter whether a manufacturer is from California or some other state or country.”

Kazan Law Attorney Frances Schreiberg Honored with Annual Award

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Frances SchreibergA passionate Kazan Law attorney just received a special honor from a workers safety group and all of us at our mesothelioma law firm feel honored and proud. Frances Schreiberg, a longtime Kazan Law Of Counsel attorney who works on pro bono cases for us, has just had a new annual award launched in her honor. It is aptly called the Frances Schreiberg Pro Bono Award.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines moral compass as “a natural feeling that makes people know what is right and wrong and how they should behave.” In the workday world, where workers continue to be put at risk for death, disease and injury whether due to asbestos exposure, faulty machinery, chemical fumes or myriad other causes, Fran serves as a moral compass for the community. She gives a voice to those who are too fearful to speak up and she empowers the unempowered.

Before I convinced her to work for Kazan Law in 1991, Fran worked for:

  • the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, training administrative law judges, attorneys and investigators
  • the State of California, Department of Industrial Relations, and among other tasks, managed the criminal Bureau of Investigations at Cal/OSHA where she prosecuted companies when workers were killed or maimed as a result of unsafe or unhealthful conditions on the job.
  • the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California, developed an occupational safety and health program for them, and was involved with a variety of construction trade union issues

Since 1984 she has been an active member of numerous Cal/OSHA regulatory advisory committees, including ones for asbestos, lead and other workplace safety hazards. In 1987, Fran and I were part of a concerned group trying to restore Cal/OSHA when powerful business interests temporarily succeeded in dissolving it. That group was the nucleus of WorkSafe and Fran has been involved with WorkSafe ever since.

WorkSafe, headquartered in Oakland, California, remains dedicated to eliminating workplace hazards. It is fitting that the group has created an annual Frances Schreiberg Pro Bono Award to be presented at their annual anniversary celebration. This year’s inaugural recipient at WorkSafe’s 31st anniversary celebration was Julius Young, a partner at the Oakland firm Boxer & Gerson.

Sophie Noero, Worksafe’s program administrator commented afterwards, “It was a wonderful event, and I am so thrilled that we were able to acknowledge and celebrate Fran’s and the firm’s invaluable support of Worksafe in front of so many members of our community.”

We are too.

Seven of Kazan Law’s Asbestos Lawyers Named to Super Lawyers 2014

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 asbestos lawyers

Top left: Steven Kazan, David McClain, Joseph Satterley, Gordon Greenwood. Bottom left: Justin Bosl, Michael Stewart, William Ruiz

I am proud to announce that Super Lawyers, a national attorney rating service, has selected seven Kazan Law asbestos lawyers for their 2014 list:

Gordon Greenwood: Super Lawyer 2004, 2006-2014

Steven Kazan: Super Lawyer 2004-2014

David McClain: Super Lawyer 2004-2014

Joseph Satterley: Super Lawyer 2013 (Kentucky) – 2014 (California)

Super Lawyers recognizes the top up-and-coming attorneys in their Rising Stars list. The selection process for Rising Stars is the same as the Super Lawyers selection process, except to be eligible for inclusion in Rising Stars, a candidate must be either 40 years old or younger or in practice for 10 years or less. No more than 2.5 percent of the lawyers in the state are named to this list. We are very proud of the three Kazan Law attorneys named Rising Stars this year:

Justin Bosl: Rising Star 2011-2014

William Ruiz: Rising Star 2012-2014

Michael Stewart: Rising Star 2013-2014

Super Lawyers annually selects lawyers from top law firms from more than 70 practice areas who have attained a high level of peer recognition and professional achievement. The selection process includes independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations.

The list is published in Super Lawyers Magazine which is distributed to attorneys and accredited law school libraries. The magazine is published in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., reaching more than 13 million readers. Super Lawyers also publishes the list as a supplemental special section in many city and regional magazines across the country.

Although this is not the first time we have received this prestigious recognition from our peers, each time I feel it is a privilege and an honor. This year is no exception.

When I first started my career as a personal injury lawyer, asbestos law as we know it today did not exist. There were plenty of personal injury lawyers but no asbestos lawyers. After taking on and winning one of the first asbestos cases ever in the U.S., I was gratified to realize that I had helped achieve justice for people who previously had none – victims of asbestos exposure. I knew I had found my calling.

I hung out my shingle for Kazan Law in Oakland California in 1974 and was soon joined by David McClain. Today Kazan Law is still headquartered in Oakland. Kazan, McClain, Satterley  & Greenwood now has 22 attorneys, including me.  As Kazan Law celebrates its 40th anniversary, the firm continues to excel at pursuing justice for mesothelioma victims and others exposed to asbestos.  Kazan Law daily puts its 40 years of experience in pioneering asbestos lawsuits and setting precedents to work for its clients today with the same zeal for justice as when we first started.

While we are pleased at the many accolades we have received, including this latest one from Super Lawyers, our greatest satisfaction as asbestos attorneys continues to come from helping our clients and their families receive due compensation for their suffering.

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