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Former Alcoa Employee to Sue Company for $20 Million from Wrongful Death Resulting from Asbestos Exposure

(September 16th, 2008)

Tennessee Supreme Court has ruled a landslide victory for victims of mesothelioma lung cancer & other asbestos related diseases in a ruling saying a corporation has full duty to prevent its employees from going home at the end of the workday in clothes that are contaminated with asbestos fibers. Knowing that the families of such workers could also be exposed to the tiny dangerous asbestos fibers that can easily be inhaled if they become airborne, the company has an important duty to set precautions for its employees and prevent asbestos exposure. The company being sued is Alcoa, a large corporation that engages in the production and management of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina worldwide. The plaintiff is Amanda Satterfield, a beautiful young woman who died on January 1st, 2005, just at the age of 25. Amanda's family is suing Alcoa for $10 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages.

Amanda was exposed to Asbestos in the late 1970s when she was just a few years old. Born in a premature birth, Amanda had to spend the first 3 months after her birth at a hospital in Knoxville, Tennessee, during which period her father was employed at Alcoa's aluminium plant. Her father was exposed to asbestos on the job, and he then visited his baby daughter in the hospital immediately after work, wearing the same asbestos-contaminated clothes. The court was surprised at realizing that Amanda was exposed to Asbestos from day 1 of her life, thanks to her father's asbestos-contaminated clothes from his job.

Proof being presented at the Supreme court included Alcoa knew that the air in its factories contained high amounts of asbestos fibers, and workers in the plant were inhaling these fibers that can easily get clogged up in the lungs and lead to lung scarring or inflammation. Infact, Alcoa conducted tests to determine the amount of asbestos fibers on their employees' asbestos-contaminated clothes, and the result was very high. It was proven that the company knew that even a small amount of exposure to asbestos fibers could lead to deadly diseases. Also, it was proven that Alcoa knew that by the 1960s, employees who worked near factories or plants that made heavy use of asbestos were at an increased risk of asbestos exposure including their families. In 1972, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) introduced legislation that forbidded employees from wearing the same clothes they wore while working around asbestos at factories and plants when going home after work.

Alcoa is being sued because it ignored the precautions that OSHA set out to protect employees from asbestos exposure. The company did little or nothing to educate its employees on how to safely work with Asbestos and wear protective gear and masks. The company did not warn its employees that the Asbestos materials they worked with were very dangerous if inhaled into the lungs. Nor did the company warn its employees about the dangers of wearing asbestos-contaminated clothes home after work. The company discouraged the use of on-site bathrooms and did not offer to laundry its employees' clothes. Using these facts, the Tennessee Supreme Court decided that "Under Tennessee law, Alcoa has a duty to prevent foreseeable injury from an unreasonable risk of harm that it had itself created."
This court ruling gives Amanda's family, the right to sue Alcoa in another court and seek damages totalling $20 million.

The Judge at the Supreme Court, Justice William Koch, quotes, "In light of the magnitude of the potential harm from exposure to asbestos and the means available to prevent or reduce this harm, we see no reason to prevent carpool members, baby sitters, or the domestic help from pursuing negligence claims against an employer should they develop mesothelioma after being repeatedly and regularly in close contact with an employee's asbestos-contaminated work clothes over an extended period of time."

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