Ever since Jeffrey Cockrum was diagnosed with malignant mesothelioma in 2022, he has been trying to hold his former employer, Howmet Aerospace, accountable. After his personal injury lawsuit was dismissed by both a trial court and the appellate court based on workers’ compensation rules, he appealed the case to the state’s Supreme Court, which decided that his claim qualified for an exception that applies when employers deliberately injure their employees.
Mesothelioma Victim’s Case Relied on Other Employees’ Illnesses
Mr. Cockrum blames his mesothelioma on asbestos he was exposed to while working for Alcoa – now Howmet Aerospace, Inc., — between 1966 and 1969. Though workers’ compensation rules generally preclude employees from suing their previous employers, Washington state’s rules have a deliberate intention exception that allows personal injury claims by an employee for injuries from “the deliberate intention of his or her employer to produce such injury.” To support his case, he pointed to “continuing illnesses among employees” from asbestos.
The company successfully petitioned the trial court to dismiss the mesothelioma case, and succeeded again at the appellate level, but Mr. Cockrum was victorious when he appealed the lower courts’ decisions to the state’s highest court. In a 7-2 decision, the Supreme Court decided that in cases of latent diseases like mesothelioma, a worker can pursue civil action if they demonstrate that their employer was “virtually certain” that the illness would follow.
Judges Decide that Employer’s Virtual Certainty of Future Illness Justifies Mesothelioma Lawsuit
The high court’s decision is specific in its application to latent diseases like mesothelioma, with Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis writing, “We conclude that, in latent disease cases, virtual certainty is sufficient to prove the employer’s actual knowledge that injury was certain to occur.”
While two of the justices argued that the precedent set by a 2014 decision, which prevented employers from being sued over cancers or other latent occupational diseases, should not be disturbed, the majority wrote that justice requires them to admit their own mistakes when a precedent is demonstrably incorrect and harmful. They reasoned that, as it stood, the rule meant that employers could “avoid liability for requiring employees to handle nuclear waste without protection or requiring employees to smoke two packs of cigarettes every day, resulting in employees eventually developing cancer. The employer’s conduct in those scenarios is more than gross negligence; rather, it crosses into the realm of deliberate intention.” The mesothelioma case will now return to the trial court to determine whether Alcoa/Howmet willfully disregarded its knowledge of the dangers of asbestos.
If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net are here to help. Contact us today at 1-800-692-8608 to learn more.
