Ohio (OH) Asbestos And Mesothelioma General, Medical, & Legal Resources

Ohio (OH) Asbestos Resources & Information:

In 2004, Ohio passed its own tort reform law (HB 292) that requires asbestos victims to have been diagnosed with a disease before filing a claim; those who have merely been exposed to asbestos but have not developed any symptoms are barred from taking any legal action. They may file at a later date should symptoms develop, however.

This is a particularly difficult issue. Statistically speaking, asbestos diseases are fairly rare, even among those who are exposed; few will actually develop a respiratory illness.

On the other hand, the U.S. is the only major, industrialized nation on earth that refuses to provide universal, single-payer health care as a right to all of its citizens; therefore, many potential victims do not receive routine medical care and are not diagnosed until it is too late. In addition, many of these corporations seek to hide behind bankruptcy (despite the fact that most continue to operate quite profitably), meaning that compensation may not be there when it's needed.

One legislator from Ohio, Dennis Kucinich, has proposed that Medicare be made available to all (H.R. 676); as of this writing (2007), the Kucinich bill has gained approximately 72 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Such a law would eliminate at least one cause of asbestos litigation almost immediately.

Ohio Jobsites

Most of the jobsites at which asbestos was used and/or is known to have been a danger consist of two of the "Big Three": power plants and utilities (Cardinal, Galiopolis, Marin City, Redding) and oil refineries (BP Amoco, Shell Oil, Sunoco). The third of these is shipyards, of which there is one in Ohio (American Shipbuilding).

Most industrial victims of asbestos diseases were employed in one of these industries at some point. Three medical studies confirm the danger to which these workers are exposed:

Cabrera-Santiago: Electricians, pipefitters, boilermakers and other repair and maintenance personnel are among those industrial workers at greatest risk for contracting asbestos-related diseases, according to data gathered by the Center for Health Statistics. The Cabrera-Santiago Study, conducted in 2003, involved the examination of chest x-rays taken of a number of power plant workers in Puerto Rico. Thirteen percent of these x-rays showed some type of abnormality in the lungs.

Krstev: This was a study carried out at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, and followed 4,700 subjects who had been employed at the nearby U.S. Coast Guard shipbuilding and maintenance facility between 1950 and 1963. The researchers concluded that shipyard employees ran a "significantly higher" risk of developing asbestos disease.

Sorahan: A U.K. study of 43,000 oil company employees showed that while those working in distribution appeared to be safe, those who actually worked at the refineries suffered from an abnormally high rate of mesothelioma.

Other Asbestos Sites

If there are heat, fire or chemical dangers at a jobsite, it is almost certain that asbestos was, or continues to be, a problem. Steel mills are one case in point; pourers and casters, operators, tenders, furnace operators and inspectors, machine setters, millwrights and welders are all jobs in which some exposure to asbestos was involved.

Those who work in building maintenance also face some risk from asbestos; at least two Ohio hospitals as well as the University of Cincinnati have asbestos issues. In these types of cases, the asbestos is usually found in the form of pipe or wall insulation, flooring and mastic used to fix tiles in place, and acoustic ceiling tiles as well as "popcorn" ceilings.

Statistics

Ohio is the 7th most populous state in the U.S.; between 1980 and 2000, that population grew by approximately 6% to 11.3 million. During that time, there were 1,624 deaths due to asbestos disease, about 66% of which were from mesothelioma.

 

Ohio (OH) Asbestos & Mesothelioma Doctors

The diagnosis and treatment of asbestos-related cancers and other diseases is gradually becoming a sub-specialty in the field of medicine all its own. However, as of the present time, there is no medical degree that is specific to asbestos-related practice.

Most doctors focusing on asbestos disease today are trained in oncology, thoracic surgery, respiratory or occupational medicine, or some related field. Below is a list of doctors in Ohio (OH) that specialize in some form of asbestos cancer or mesothelioma treatment and the institution they are currently affiliated with:

 

Ohio (OH) Asbestos & Mesothelioma Treatment Centers

Today, between 25 and 30% of all Americans will get some form of cancer during their lifetimes. There are many reasons for this, including the modern lifestyle and the poisons that have been put into the environment – of which asbestos is a prime example.

The number of clinics and hospitals that specialize in oncology have increased in response to the growing number of patients. Below is a list of the cancer treatment centers located in Ohio (OH) that we feature on Asbestos.net:

 

Clinical Trials Serving Ohio (OH):

A clinical trial is when new medications and treatments are tested on human subjects. Participation in such studies can entail some risks, but for some who are facing an invariably fatal disease, they also represent an opportunity – not only for personal relief, but to serve the greater good in the advancement of medical knowledge.

Below is a list of clinical trials with locations in Ohio (OH):

Ohio (OH) Legal Resources: Asbestos, Asbestos Cancer & Mesothelioma

A search through the Ohio Federal District Court Cases for asbestos-related personal injury product liability lawsuits brings up a list of 20 lawsuits from 2006 and 2007. A vast majority of these lawsuits are related to the Jones Act and involve A-C Product Liability Trust as the defendant.

Ohio is ranked fifth in the U.S. for mesothelioma cases. With a mesothelioma mortality rate of 14.7 per million, Ohio has a crude mortality rank of 12 in the country. In the Ohio court system, there are about 40,000 pending cases brought by Ohioans exposed to asbestos.

A number of key asbestos cases that have taken place in Ohio have returned a pro-plaintiff verdict. These include Blandford v. Garlock, Inc., filed in Cuyahoga City. The jury in that case returned a $6.4 million verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

Another key case in Ohio, Thornton, et al. v. A-Best Products, et al., ruled that a medical criteria bill concerning the types of asbestos claims that may proceed to trial should not be applied retroactively to the claims of 11 asbestos plaintiffs. The court ruled that the plaintiffs' claims should proceed to trial under the law prior to the Act. The Ohio Court of Common Pleas for Cuyahoga County found in January, 2005, that the Act impaired the rights of the plaintiffs. While the original case was working its way through the courts in 2004, Amended Substitute House Bill 292 was enacted, prompting the defendants to move that the 11 lawsuits be taken off the trial list. The intention of House Bill 292 was to give priority to asbestos claimants who exhibit actual physical injury cased by asbestos. It classified plaintiffs into those asserting claims based on non-malignant conditions, those who are smokers and suffer from lung cancer, and those asserting a wrongful death claim. The Common Pleas Court noted in its ruling that the Ohio Constitution prohibits the passing of retroactive laws and protects existing rights from new legislative encroachments.

Not all Ohio cases have been decided in favor of the plaintiffs, however. The Ohio Supreme Court has ruled that federal locomotive safety laws do not allow asbestos victims to make claims against train manufacturers in Ohio state courts. The decision affirmed a lower court's decision to bar about 2,000 former railway workers from adding train manufacturers to their separate lawsuits against nearly 60 companies that made, sold or used asbestos. The workers alleged they were exposed to the asbestos while working in or maintaining rail cars. The decision was not, according to the court, a comment on the validity of the workers' claims; however, because of the Federal Locomotive Boiler Inspection Act, the claims were deemed irrelevant and futile because the Act pre-empts state-law tort claims against railroad manufacturers. They also said lower courts in Ohio have great discretion in deciding whether new defendants should be added to an existing lawsuit and that a plaintiff challenging such a decision had to show that it was unreasonable, arbitrary or unconscionable. A justice who disagreed with the ruling said that since the claims dealt with products no longer in use rather than current railroad equipment, they were not in danger of intruding into federal domain.

Those interested in filing lawsuits should know that the statute of limitations for personal injury law in Ohio is two years with a discovery rule that states that this amount of time begins when the problem (in this case the mesothelioma) either was discovered or should have been discovered. Wrongful death cases fall under the same statute of limitations and discovery rule. Ohio has no specific statutes about asbestos.

Return to Top

State Resources:

State Resources

Alabama (AL)

Alaska (AK)

Arizona (AZ)

Arkansas (AR)

California (CA)

Colorado (CO)

Connecticut (CT)

Delaware (DE)

Florida (FL)

Georgia (GA)

Hawaii (HI)

Idaho (ID)

Illinois (IL)

Indiana (IN)

Iowa (IA)

Kansas (KS)

Kentucky (KY)

Louisiana (LA)

Maine (ME)

Maryland (MD)

Massachusetts (MA)

Michigan (MI)

Minnesota (MN)

Mississippi (MS)

Missouri (MO)

Montana (MT)

Nebraska (NE)

Nevada (NV)

New Hampshire (NH)

New Jersey (NJ)

New Mexico (NM)

New York (NY)

North Carolina (NC)

North Dakota (ND)

Ohio (OH)

Oklahoma (OK)

Oregon (OR)

Pennsylvania (PA)

Rhode Island (RI)

South Carolina (SC)

South Dakota (SD)

Tennessee (TN)

Texas (TX)

Utah (UT)

Vermont (VT)

Virginia (VA)

Washington (WA)

West Virginia (WV)

Wisconsin (WI)

Wyoming (WY)

Washington D.C. (DC)