Family Gets $1.4 Million in Asbestos Lawsuit

The family of a Bloomington, Illinois man who died of asbestos-related cancer was awarded $1.4 million by a jury this week.

According to an article in the Bloomington Pantagraph, the family of Jake Lilienthal sued GM&O Railroad – which operates rail yards on the west side of Bloomington – after their family member was diagnosed with lung cancer due to asbestos exposure.

Lilienthal did not survive long enough to celebrate the verdict. He died in 2009, more than 50 years after his initial exposure to asbestos. The Bloomington resident was employed at the GM&O rail yards from 1957 until 1972. Upon leaving the yards, he worked at GM&O’s company shops in Paducah, Kentucky, where he was once again exposed to asbestos material, which was often used in the manufacture of friction products such as brakes and clutches. Asbestos may have also been used to insulate high-temperature equipment such as boilers, furnaces, generators, or other items regularly used aboard trains or in railroad shops.

The trial lasted two weeks and after extensive testimony the jury determined that the railroad had knowledge of Lilienthal’s asbestos exposure but failed to warn him of the dangers of the material or supply him with protective equipment that could have prevented inhalation of asbestos fibers.

Railroad employees are high on the list of workers most likely to develop mesothelioma cancer due to on-the-job exposure to asbestos. Those who worked for the nation’s railroads prior to the late 1970s most likely encountered the material on a daily basis, and though it has been proven that railroad executives often knew that asbestos was making employees ill, few made any effort to warn them of the dangers that existed.

As such, many railroad workers and their families, like the survivors of Jake Lilienthal, have sued their former employees for compensation for their pain and suffering, medical bills, and other expenses.