Lung cancer victim Peter Marino was 91 years old when he first testified about his asbestos exposure. It was three years ago that he’d pointed to Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company as the manufacturer of the contaminated floor tile he’d been exposed to, and since that time Goodyear responded with a petition to have his claim dismissed. The company argued that because Marino couldn’t describe the tile’s packaging, his testimony was insufficient. The judge hearing the case disagreed and further criticized the company’s arguments.
Goodyear Seeks Summary Judgment in Asbestos Lung Cancer Claim
Mr. Marino testified that he’d worked with Goodyear floor tiles from 1959 to the late 1980s, and pointed to asbestos in those tiles as the cause of his lung cancer. Goodyear filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that at the time they were not manufacturing new tiles with asbestos, and asserting that Mr. Marino’s testimony lacked sufficient detail.
In reviewing the case, Justice Adam Silvera of the Supreme Court of New York County noted that summary judgment requires meeting an appropriate standard of proof that Goodyear had ignored. He said the law requires them to affirmatively prove there was no causation, but instead, they’d focused on the 90-year-old lung cancer victim’s failure to adequately cite details from thirty to sixty years earlier. He also noted that Mr. Marino had presented sufficient evidence regarding the asbestos content of tiles manufactured by Goodyear to raise questions of fact
Judge Says Asbestos Company “Wholly Failed” in Argument Against Liability for Man’s Lung Cancer
In handing down his denial of Goodyear’s petition, Justice Silvera said that by attempting to discredit the lung cancer victim’s testimony, Goodyear had “wholly failed” to satisfy its burden for summary judgment while the victim had sufficiently raised issues of fact.
Justice Silvera said that the asbestos company’s arguments had focused “entirely on plaintiff’s testimony and evidence as opposed to affirmatively establishing that their products could not have causally contributed to plaintiff’s lung cancer,” and that they “provided no evidence that its previously manufactured and potentially asbestos-containing varieties were not still in distribution or could not have been encountered by Mr. Marino.” The case will continue for a jury to decide.
If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma or asbestos-related lung cancer, the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net can help. Contact us today at 1-800-692-8608.
