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Posts by: Steven Kazan

Kazan Law Ranks #2 in Million Dollar Verdicts of 2013

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Joseph Satterley

Joseph Satterley

I am proud to announce that our asbestos law firm has been recognized for having the second highest ranking for a product liability verdict in the important annual California’s Million Dollar Verdicts list published by the authoritative source of California legal news The Recorder. This victory was the eighth highest among all verdicts awarded in California in 2013.

Kazan Law rated this honor for our June 5, 2013 verdict awarding plaintiffs Rose-Marie and Martin Grigg a total of $27,342,500 in damages for Mrs. Grigg’s asbestos-caused mesothelioma.

Evidence introduced during the trial showed that Owens-Illinois, Inc. knew that asbestos exposure could cause death as early as the 1930s and that test results on the company’s Kaylo brand of insulation showed that exposure to the asbestos in the product could cause fatal disease.

Owens-Illinois nonetheless advertised Kaylo as “non-toxic” and did not state that the product contained asbestos. Kaylo was packaged in boxes without warning about the health hazards associated with asbestos exposure.

“If we live in a society where product manufacturers are not held responsible for products once those products leave their possession, the world we live in is a dangerous place,” Kazan Law partner Joseph D. Satterley said to the jury when he asked them to find justice for Mrs. and Mr. Grigg.

The Recorder is the leading source of important California legal news and information. For over a century, it has provided legal news that California companies and law firms rely on to stay up to date on a wide spectrum of legal issues. In both its print and digital editions, it focuses on legal developments that are considered important news in litigation and judiciary matters.

The Recorder’s annual California Top Verdicts & Settlements issue is one of their most anticipated issues of the year. Making it on there is a sign we’re one of this nation’s best asbestos law firms.

This important annual compilation list is based on VerdictSearch, a comprehensive database of civil and criminal court cases, jury verdicts, legal judgments and settlements. The Recorder’s list highlights the top verdicts of California law firms from the year that just ended. It will be available on The Recorder’s site for the entire year

Pneumo Abex Corporation – A History of Asbestos Death and Disease

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Pneumo AbexWhen I tell people that I am an attorney who seeks justice for those who have been exposed to asbestos, some people react with surprise. “Exposed to asbestos?” they ask.  “Does that still happen?  Is anyone exposed to asbestos anymore?”

Sadly yes. Thousands of people have been exposed to asbestos in the decades since it has become common knowledge about the fatal damage that being exposed to asbestos causes to the lungs. People are being exposed to asbestos right now.  I wish this wasn’t true.

But there are two types of people in this world.  There are people who try to do well by doing good. And unfortunately there are people who will do anything for money. Even if it gets innocent people killed. And that is how people get exposed to asbestos.

Consider the Pneumo Abex Corporation.  Founded in 1928 in Portsmouth, Virginia as the American Brake Shoe and Foundry, Pneumo Abex produced asbestos-containing products until 1987.

Gordon Bankhead worked with Pneumo Abex brake linings from 1965 to 1999 servicing and repairing vehicles at an Oakland, CA shipping company. He helped inspect, replace and grind asbestos-containing brakes. In doing this, he breathed deadly asbestos dust. He died from mesothelioma in 2011 at age 68.

An Alameda County, California jury returned an $11 million verdict in an asbestos wrongful death suit (Emily Bankhead, Tammy Bankhead, and Debbie Bankhead Meiers v. ArvinMeritor, Inc., et al., Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG12632899) against Pneumo Abex LLC on January 15, 2014. Kazan Law partner David McClain represented the Bankhead family. This follows a January 2011 verdict assessing punitive damages against Phuemo Abex LLC of $9 million along with compensatory damages for Mr. Bankhead’s pain and suffering and for his wife Emily’s suffering as she watched his disease progress and take his life.

Evidence our firm brought forward in the Bankhead case and an earlier case (Robert Frank Smith and Mary Lou Smith v. Pneumo Abex LLC, Los Angeles County Superior Court No. BC396072) proved that Pneumo Abex knew of the deadly health effects of breathing asbestos dust since at least the 1940s, but that Pneumo Abex did not begin warning  customers of those effects until years after their customers’ employees like Mr. Bankhead and Mr. Smith were exposed to the asbestos-containing brakes it made and sold. In fact, Pneumo Abex was involved in medical studies on the health effects of asbestos during the 1930s and 1940s and its medical director was a frequent speaker on asbestos health hazards during the 1940s.

The company knew by then that asbestos killed. By the 1950s they knew it caused lung cancer and by 1963 they knew it caused mesothelioma. Despite its knowledge of the hazards of asbestos, Pneumo Abex continued to sell asbestos-containing brakes until 1987 without warning its victims of the dangers of asbestos or the risk of fatal cancer.

Scientist Secretly Associated with Asbestos Industry May Help Weaken Asbestos Laws

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asbestos lawsCreating asbestos laws depends on rigorous honest scientific information.  In order for asbestos laws to protect people, lawmakers need reliable scientific evidence about the harm asbestos exposure does to people exposed to this highly toxic substance.

New stricter asbestos laws and better regulations regarding workplace and product safety to prevent asbestos exposure often hinge on testimony from scientific experts in medicine, epidemiology and toxicology.  When leading scientists allow themselves to become corrupted by money from industries with vested interest in weaker rather than stronger asbestos laws, public health suffers.  Individual people suffer.  They become very sick and die because asbestos laws in their country failed to protect them.

The outcome of asbestos court cases can also depend on reliable scientific evidence about asbestos because courts and juries need to know the facts to determine whether asbestos laws were violated.

We have reported here about university scientists in the U.S., Scotland and Canada who are accused of selling out to the asbestos industry.  Now, new evidence points to a prominent European scientist who is alleged to also have been swayed by asbestos industry bribes.

What is most disturbing is that the scientist in question, Paolo Boffetta, is expected to become the next head of France’s leading epidemiology institute, the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health (CESP).  This would greatly increase his influence over France’s asbestos laws and regulations.

Kathleen Ruff, an international anti-asbestos advocate based in Canada, reports that Boffetta was the lead author of an industry-friendly article, Estimating the asbestos-related lung cancer burden from mesothelioma mortality, in the British Journal of Cancer.

 

The article concludes, “… that the mesothelioma-producing potential of chrysotile is low and thus the number of mesothelioma deaths will be too unstable to be used to estimate the lung cancers caused by it.”

Bofetta submitted the article under the auspices of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).  Bofetta, along with the other authors, declared “no conflict of interest”.

Yet at the same time that he was co-writing IARC’s article, Boffetta reportedly was being paid by an Italian asbestos company to help it defeat charges of criminal negligence, causing the deaths of a dozen workers who died from mesothelioma after being exposed to asbestos used at the company’s Montefibre factory in Italy.

Keep in mind that the IARC is the cancer agency of the World Health Organization.  So this chain of events is like discovering that the National Cancer Institute of NIH has been infiltrated and corrupted by the asbestos industry.

Bofetta testified in support of the company’s argument that if workers had been exposed to asbestos in the distant past, it did not matter if they were subsequently exposed to asbestos. He claimed that repeated, subsequent doses of asbestos do not cause further harm to workers so there should be no consequences to the company for having continued to expose its workers to asbestos over the ensuing decades.

Italian epidemiologist Dario Mirabelli noted according to Ruff’s report that Boffetta considered “a very limited number of studies and the results of those that were considered, were selectively reported. For example, they cite our most recent article on mortality among workers in the Eternit plant in Casale Monferrato, but they do not cite our main result, which is that mesothelioma mortality is directly proportional to the duration of exposure asbestos.”

So in other words, the fox can’t be trusted to guard the henhouse.

Kazan Law Helps to Fund Public Justice Attorney Leah Nicholls

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Leah Nicholls

Leah Nicholls
Photo credit: Public Justice

Giving back is one of our guiding principles at Kazan Law.  Because we work with mesothelioma patients and their families, much of our giving back goes to mesothelioma research.  However, helping to fund research for new treatments and cures for mesothelioma is just part of the story for us. We also believe in giving back to further the pursuit of justice.

We are proud to donate to nonprofit legal organizations that take on the tough ones and stand up for humanity.  As legal advocates for victims of asbestos exposure, we defend our clients against corporate misconduct and we gladly support legal assistance for those who need it in other causes.

One of the organizations we support is aptly named Public Justice.  Based in Washington D.C. and Oakland, they consider themselves America’s public interest law firm and according to their mission statement, they:

  • protect people and the environment
  • hold the powerful accountable
  • challenge government, corporate, and individual wrongdoing
  • increase access to justice
  • combat threats to our justice system
  • inspire lawyers and others to serve the public interest

Kazan Law helps fund Public Justice by co-underwriting together with another firm a full-time position for one of their attorneys.  Her name is Leah Nicholls and since joining Public Justice’s Washington D.C. office in September 2013, she has helped defend residents of a rural island community against a toxic bauxite refinery, protect the injury settlement of an airlines employee, ensure access by citizens to state government records in Virginia, challenge Texas health regulations over a salmonella outbreak due to unsanitary poultry facilities, argue for a WalMart employee’s right to disability benefits and argue other cases, many involving the Supreme Court.

Leah said in a recent memorandum, “This past year has been both challenging and rewarding, and I am extremely lucky to be able to do the kind of important work that Public Justice does at the highest levels. I am deeply grateful to Steven Kazan for this outstanding opportunity.”

And I am deeply proud of what this young attorney has accomplished at Public Justice in such a short time and look forward seeing all that she will do in the years to come.

Jury Awards $11 Million in Asbestos Wrongful Death Lawsuit

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asbestos wrongful death

Emily and Gordon Bankhead

An Alameda County, California jury returned an $11 million verdict in an asbestos wrongful death suit (Emily Bankhead, Tammy Bankhead, and Debbie Bankhead Meiers v. ArvinMeritor, Inc., et al., Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG12632899) against Pneumo Abex LLC on January 15, 2014. Kazan Law partner David McClain represented Emily Bankhead, Tammy Bankhead, and Debbie Bankhead-Meiers, the widow and adult daughters, respectively, of Gordon Bankhead. A prior jury had found that Pneumo Abex’s asbestos-containing brakes were defective, and that Pneumo Abex negligently, intentionally, and maliciously caused Mr. Bankhead’s mesothelioma, who died from the disease at age 68.

Mr. Bankhead’s tragic death gave rise to a new case to compensate his family for their loss of his companionship for all the years by which his life was cut short. This wrongful death lawsuit was filed by our asbestos law firm on the Bankhead’s behalf. In this second trial, which commenced January 13, 2014, Pneumo Abex was not allowed to dispute its responsibility for Mr. Bankhead’s death. The jury was not told the reasons for Pneumo Abex’s liability, nor were they told about the circumstances of Mr. Bankhead’s death. The jury was tasked with deciding the full amount of Mr. Bankhead’s widow’s and daughters’ losses due to his wrongful death 17 years before his life expectancy.

The jury valued Emily Bankhead’s losses at $6 million, and Tammy Bankhead’s and Debbie Bankhead-Meiers’s losses at $2,500,000 each. “This verdict shows that wrongful death cases are extremely valuable and undervalued by insurers and defendants,” stated Mr. McClain. “The jury returned a reasonable and fair decision that shows how jurors value the loss and love of a parent and family.”

According to Mr. McClain, “No amount of money can make up for Mr. Bankhead’s death, but we at Kazan Law and the family take comfort from the jury’s swift and just verdict.”

Gordon Bankhead worked from 1965 to 1999 in the service and repair of heavy duty vehicles as a Parts Man. He regularly handled asbestos-containing brakes, and was present for the inspection, replacement, grinding, and blowing out of asbestos-containing brakes. All of these activities caused him to breathe deadly asbestos dust. Pneumo Abex manufactured many of the brake linings Mr. Bankhead was exposed to.

Mr. and Mrs. Bankhead were represented in their first trial by Kazan Law partners Joseph Satterley and Justin Bosl, and former partner Leigh Kirmsse. The jury awarded Mr. Bankhead $1,470,000 for his past and future economic loss, and $1,500,000 for his pain and suffering. The jury also awarded his wife, Emily Bankhead $1,000,000 for her loss of her husband’s support and companionship. The jury found that defendants’ actions were malicious, fraudulent, and/or oppressive and awarded $9,000,000 in punitive damages against Pneumo Abex. Pneumo Abex appealed the verdict, which was subsequently upheld.

Chevron Punished for Misconduct in Asbestos Exposure Case

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asbestos exposure caseYesterday I wrote about the order Kazan Law obtained punishing Union Oil for not producing its corporate witness to testify about its past wrong-doing toward asbestos victims. On the same day as Judge Jo-Lynne Q. Lee of the Alameda County Superior Court issued that order, she also punished Union Oil’s parent company, Chevron, for similar misconduct in an asbestos exposure case. Judge Lee granted Kazan Law partner Justin Bosl’s request to sanction Chevron $1,060 in the asbestos exposure case of Patricia and Billy Joe Sendle.

Billy Joe Sendle was a longtime welder for PG&E in Richmond, Merced, and Fairfield, California. During his work he encountered an asbestos pipe-coating called Somastic, which was developed and licensed by Chevron. He brought the asbestos dust home on his clothing and person. His wife, Patricia, was exposed to that dust, especially when doing his laundry. She now has mesothelioma. Chevron delayed producing its corporate witness for months, resulting in Judge Lee’s order sanctioning it. We hope Chevron will produce a witness soon for this asbestos exposure case to answer for its actions in developing and selling a deadly product.

Related post:  Judge Orders Monetary Sanctions Against Union Oil

Judge Orders Monetary Sanctions Against Union Oil

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Union OilFrank Rondon was exposed to asbestos in brakes supplied by Union Oil when he worked as a service station attendant at Felix Union 76 in Los Altos, California in the early 1970s. Mr. Rondon came to Kazan Law for help after tragically learning that he has mesothelioma.

On November 22, 2013, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jo-Lynne Q. Lee granted a preferential trial date and issued an order to defendants Union Oil to provide deposition dates for their corporate representatives no later than December 20, 2013.

Union Oil attended the case management conference on December 20th with no date to offer. In response, Judge Lee issued a second order to Union Oil to provide dates for deposition of their corporate representatives no later than January 7, 2014.  Counsel for Union Oil promised she would oblige.

On January 10, 2014, despite Judge Lee’s multiple orders and the promises of their counsel, Union Oil still had not provided dates for the deposition. Judge Lee ordered monetary sanctions against Union Oil in the amount of $200.00. It may not seem like much, but we’ve learned that money is all big companies care about, and with Judge Lee’s active intervention, we hope Union Oil will finally produce a witness who can be forced to admit the facts about corporate wrongdoing. This means that Kazan Law partner Justin Bosl will have a stronger case when we go to trial.

Related post: Chevron Punished for Misconduct in Asbestos Exposure Case

 

Gratitude and Scientific News from the University of Chicago’s Mesothelioma Research Program

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mesothelioma researchEven though I have been a mesothelioma attorney for many years, I never get used to the heartbreak of each and every one of my mesothelioma clients.  As I get to know each client and their families, they become more than clients.  Each becomes a face I will never forget; a suffering human being who came into my life near the premature end of theirs to seek help and justice.  And even though I am a mesothelioma attorney, my biggest wish is that there would be no more mesothelioma clients.  No more suffering and pain to individuals and their families from the callously negligent exposure to asbestos from the mesothelioma client’s employer.

That is why I also closely follow medical mesothelioma research and have our firm’s charitable foundation financially support mesothelioma research that someday will help to prolong their lives.

In 2006, I was in Chicago attending a meeting of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group.  One of the speakers was a key mesothelioma medical researcher from the prestigious University of Chicago medical school.  Hedy Lee Kindler MD is a top international cancer expert and one of the best around for mesothelioma.  In fact, she is the director of the Mesothelioma Research Program at the University of Chicago and a recent president of the International Mesothelioma Interest Group.

I spoke with Dr. Kindler who was also treating several of our clients. I was so impressed with the novel approaches she and her team were taking and decided to recommend to our Board of Directors that we financially support their work through the firm’s charitable foundation. And every year, I receive a wonderful summary of the research that contribution is helping to fund.

Dr. Kindler and her colleague Dr. Ravi Salgia now are evaluating a signaling pathway – molecules that kickstart cell activity – which appears to play a pivotal role in cell growth in malignant mesothelioma. Their goal of blocking this pathway could prove to be crucial to developing new mesothelioma therapies.

Other researchers in the program are carrying out studies using over 100 mesothelioma tissue samples and cells from the University of Chicago’s Thoracic Tumor Bank.  These studies also will help clarify how specific pathways get activated in mesothelioma and how genetically-engineered drugs can target them.

“The opportunities in our clinical research program to deliver focused targeted therapies give us confidence that we will play a critical role in improving survival and outcomes for mesothelioma patients. Your partnership continues to help us achieve our shared vision,” states my annual thank you letter.

I am proud to be part of that vision.

Court Reinforces Right to Sue at State Level for Workers Exposed to Workplace Toxins

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OSHAOccupational safety means just that.  It means safety on the job from life-threatening hazards like asbestos exposure and other workplace toxins. So today I have good news for all of us who care about justice and occupational safety for America’s work force!

Last week, a federal court unanimously issued a ruling strengthening protections for Americans injured by hazardous substances, including asbestos exposure, on the job.

Specifically, the federal appeals court rejected a lawsuit filed by the American Tort Reform Association that challenged an important section of wording in OSHA’s revised hazard communication standard.  OSHA is the Occupational and Safety Hazard Administration, a division of the Department of Labor.

Both state and federal laws outline how companies are required to label harmful substances – including asbestos – in the workplace. Federal law usually trumps state law, but victims injured due to inadequate hazard labeling are still allowed to sue their employer for damages under state law.  The American Tort Reform Association, an industry-funded group, tried to overturn that and was unsuccessful.

I learned of this favorable ruling from Leah Nicholls, the Kazan-Budd attorney at Public Justice, a Washington D.C.-based public interest law firm.  I am proud to say that Kazan Law co-funds Leah Nicholls at Public Justice so she can work on difficult cases to protect people and the environment against powerful interests.

“The court’s opinion is great news for all of us who want to hold employers liable for injuries to employees,” Leah said.

“OSHA endorses the ability of employees injured because of inadequate labeling of hazardous substances to sue under state law to get damages for their injuries and, importantly, to prevent the same injuries from happening to other employees,” she added. “The fact that the D.C. Circuit held that OSHA’s endorsement stands will help persuade other courts that the existence of federal regulations does not prevent people from suing under state laws.”

The US Supreme Court has issued several rulings in recent years scaling back Americans’ ability to sue corporations for damages. The high court is also the most business-friendly since World War II, according to the New York Times business section. In that context especially, Leah said, “This is a heartening decision.”  I concur.

New Year, New Name for Kazan Law

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Kazan LawIt’s a new year and our firm has a new name.  A new year is always an excellent time for change, revitalization and renewal. Sometimes change is by choice; you initiate it. Other times change comes to you unbidden and you need to embrace that change and embrace the opportunities it brings.

Here at Kazan Law, we have had change come our way even though we did not seek it.  We were Kazan, McClain, Satterley, Lyons, Greenwood & Oberman.  As of today, our new name is Kazan, McClain, Satterley & Greenwood, a Professional Law Corporation—a reflection of two of our longtime partners choosing retirement.

Dianna Lyons and James Oberman are difficult to say goodbye and farewell to – although we do most emphatically wish them both well.  Both these veteran attorneys are giants in the field and have been with me for many years.  Jim was a certified appellate specialist who did outstanding motion and appeals work and Dianna was a great appellate lawyer who became an accomplished trial lawyer with us. I’ll be giving you a closer look at each of their careers as a proper send-off soon. For now just know that we will miss them.

But as the chapters on their careers at Kazan Law and in asbestos litigation close, new chapters will open. New brilliant young minds fresh from law school and on fire to change the world – or at least a piece of it – will find their way to our door. We will welcome them in just as we once welcomed Dianna Lyons and James Oberman.  And new attorneys will work with us to help you and your families as we always have.

Bottom line?  We’re still Kazan Law.  That hasn’t changed.  We are still the ground-breaking top-ranked asbestos litigation firm we’ve been for decades. We remain passionately committed to fighting for the rights of victims of asbestos exposure and trail blazing new precedents in asbestos law.

Kazan Law is a nationally recognized plaintiffs’ asbestos law firm with a particular expertise as asbestos lawyers fighting for victims of mesothelioma, a cancer that is a result of exposure to airborne asbestos fibers. Some of the principals in our firm are pioneers in asbestos litigation and among the most experienced asbestos lawyers in California. Our attorneys have been instrumental in winning precedent-setting rulings by the California Appellate and Supreme Courts that have impacted asbestos law in California and ensured that asbestos victims have the opportunity to seek justice in the court system against those who caused their illness.

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