Yesterday, a jury awarded $7 million to the family of a Ross, Pennsylvania man who was exposed to asbestos during his work at the Koppers building in downtown Pittsburgh and two other locations.

According to an article in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the Allegheny County jury found Koppers Co. Inc., which was taken over by Beazer in 1988, to be responsible for 40 percent of the damages in the case of Alphonse Tripoli. Dravo Corp., which was acquired by Belgium’s Carmeuse Group, and Fisher Scientific International Inc., part of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., were each found to be responsible for 10 percent. The remaining damages will be split among a litany of other defendants, mostly companies that made and sold asbestos products, explained attorney Rick Nemeroff.

The attorney argued that all three job sites – Koppers, Dravo, and Fisher Scientific - contained asbestos, but successfully confirmed that Koppers hid what they knew about the presence of asbestos in the downtown building.

“Koppers failed to warn him or anybody [about] what they knew,” Nemeroff said. “The dirty little secret Koppers was trying to keep finally came out. They knew, and I guess they just didn’t care.”

Tripoli died in January 2006, six months after he was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma. He was 68 years old. His family filed a wrongful death suit shortly after he passed away.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 23rd, 2008 at 11:09 am and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.