Tennessee Mesothelioma Lawyer

Tennessee Mesothelioma Lawyer

Tennessee Mesothelioma Lawyer

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Overview of Asbestos in Tennessee

In an era when most southern states were limited to pulp and paper mills and textile factories for an industrial base Tennessee underwent some heavy industrialization with the advent of the Tennessee Valley Authority, founded by the federal government to develop electrical power for the region. Today the Authority has over eight million customers, and Tennessee has at least twelve TVA power plants built with asbestos insulation for the steam generation facilities and asbestos fittings throughout the piping systems.

The pulp and paper industry, which used asbestos fabric belts to drive the pulp through the drying process, had a major facility in Memphis. Johns Manville, DuPont Chemical, Hooker Chemical and W.R. Grace Corporation are a few of the industries that developed in Tennessee during the asbestos era, prior to 1975 when asbestos products were taken off the market. Two of those firms have since filed bankruptcy to protect themselves from hundreds of thousands of mesothelioma and asbestos liability claims, as have others that were – and are – present in Tennessee.
Mesothelioma & Asbestos Deaths in Tennessee

Tennessee has had a long record of illness from asbestos exposure among the populace. It ranks seventeenth among the fifty states for the number of people who have succumbed to an asbestos related illness. A survey of death certificates dated from 1979 to 2000 reveals that 229 Tennessee residents died from asbestosis during that period. At least 447 additional residents died from mesothelioma, with possibly an additional 340 deaths that were misdiagnosed as being due to lung cancer or another respiratory failure. The federal government began tracking mesothelioma deaths in 1999 and reported in 2005 that an additional 283 mesothelioma deaths had occurred over five years, suggesting that figures for the previous decades are far too low.
Legal Rights of Mesothelioma Victims in Tennessee

The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation enforces the EPA standards on asbestos emissions and the guidelines for asbestos abatement except in four of the state’s counties where local enforcement is in place. There is a significant history of legal action over asbestos exposure in Tennessee. State law allows just one year to file a personal injury or product liability suit after the harm has occurred, which in this instance would be the date of diagnosis for an asbestos related disease. There is also a one year statute of limitations on wrongful death suits.
Asbestos Lawsuits in Tennessee

In November of 2009 a Tennessean filed a wrongful death action against DuPont and affiliated companies for the loss of his mother who died earlier in the year from mesothelioma cancer after being exposed to asbestos fibers brought home from the plant on her husband’s clothing. The wife of a pipefitter who died from mesothelioma was awarded $1.4 million by a Tennessee jury recently as well.

Tennessee Mesothelioma Lawyer