tennessee mesothelioma lawyer

TennesseeMesothelioma Lawyer and Legal Information

While Tennessee has not seen the volume of asbestos-related lawsuits that states like Virginia, Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania have seen, the state courts have dealt with enough asbestos cases to have developed specific statutes and policies for dealing with asbestos-related diseases. For instance, in1979, the Tennessee legislature passed a bill that accepted asbestosis from a restrictive statute of repose that would havebarred most asbestosis lawsuits from being filed.

Often, asbestos and mesothelioma lawsuits are challenged either in pre-trial motions or on appeal with defendants citing errors of procedure as the reason for appeal. The Tennessee courts have frequently ruled in favor of plaintiffs in matters of procedure. In a 1982 case, for instance, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court's jury verdict for the defendant on the grounds thatthe trial court judge had erred in several matters of procedure. One of the more importanterrors was the judge's instruction to the jury telling them by mistake that they could only find for the plaintiff if the defendant's products were the sole cause of the decedent's asbestosis. On the contrary, the appeal court stated, the defendant's actions didn't have to be the sole cause of the defendant's injury under Tennessee law. It was enough that the defendant's actions were a "substantial factor in causing them." (Murphree v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc)

Determination of Liability

The Tennessee courts follow a system of modified comparative negligence - 50 percent in determining whether or not damages should be awarded. Under the system followed in the Tennessee courts, a plaintiff can only collect damages if their fault in causing the injury is found to be 49 percent or less. If the plaintiff is found partially at fault, but less than 50 percent at fault, any damages determined will be reduced in proportion to their share of the fault. In other words, if thejury decides that the plaintiff is 30 percent at fault in his or her own injury and the damages in the case amount to $100,000, the plaintiff may collect up to $70,000.

In cases with more than one defendant, the Tennessee courts use a pure several liability system. Under that system, each defendant is only responsible for the share of the award that is proportionate to its share of the fault in causing the injury.

TennesseeAsbestos Litigation

Tennessee's court system has been dealing with an asbestos incident involving the U.S. Postal Service. In one of the state's main facilities, asbestos used in the floor tile placed many employees at risk. OSHA and the Postal Service are still looking for the best and safest solution to this problem, and in themeanwhile, employees are being kept safe through a number of preventative measures, including daily mopping.

There are many different grounds under which a mesothelioma lawsuit may be brought against a company or companies. FELA and the Jones Act, for instance, specifically allow railroad and maritime employees who were injured on the job, including those who were injured by occupational exposures like asbestos, to bring suit against their employers for compensation of damages. These account for many Tennessee asbestos suits, along with disputed Workers' Compensation clams. Examples of asbestos-related lawsuits in Tennessee are detailed below:

2006 - Hensley v. CSX Railroad: Thurston Hensley, age 67, sued CSX under the Federal Employees Liability Act (FELA) for damages he sustained as a direct result of being exposed to asbestos in the CSX railroad yards where he worked for 33 years as an electrician. Hensley received $5 million, upheld on appeal in April 2008.

2008 - Satterfield v. Breeding Insulation and ALCOA: In a case decided in February 2008, the Tennessee Supreme Court in Knoxville reinstated a second-hand asbestos case and returned it to the trial court for decision. Amanda Satterfield filed suit against the defendants alleging that her exposure to asbestos carried home on her father's clothing when she was an infant caused her mesothelioma.

Satterfield's father worked for Breeding Insulation and used products made by ALCOA in his work with asbestos. The suit alleged that ALCOA had knowledge as early as the 1960s of workers' families becoming ill from secondhand exposure to asbestos in their products, but failed to warn Satterfield of that danger. Consequently, from the time his daughter Amanda was born prematurely and throughout her childhood, Satterfield returned home in dusty clothing and exposed his daughter to asbestos which eventually caused her mesothelioma.

Amanda Satterfield filed suit in 2003. She died of mesothelioma in 2005 while the suit was still pending, and her father joined the suit as her representative. ALCOA argued that they had no legal duty of care to Amanda Satterfield, and thus there was no cause of action to bring suit against them. The Tennessee trial court agreed and dismissed the case. The Supreme Court of Tennessee disagreed with the judgment that ALCOA had no duty of care to the families of their employees and reversed the decision, returning it to the trial court.

In its decision, the Supreme Court stated that "ALCOA should have understood that the risk of injury to someone like Ms. Satterfield was a reasonably foreseeable probability." The case cements the concept of secondhand household exposure to asbestos as a reasonably foreseeable probability for which the company can be held liable.