An asbestos case in New Jersey is the most recent and shocking example of how far insurance companies and corporate defendants will go to win at trial. Harold St. John died of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer almost always caused by inhaling asbestos, just two days before the start of his lawsuit against his former employer and the asbestos manufacturers. His suit alleged he inhaled the asbestos while working in auto repair shops and contracted mesothelioma as a result.
Upon learning of Mr. St. John’s death, the defendants immediately asked for an autopsy to presumably look for asbestos fibers in his lungs and halted the burial service while it was going on!
A New Jersey superior court judge promptly denied the request in a common sense decision. Adding the ultimate insult to injury, his decision was appealed causing further delay of the burial service while Mr. St. John’s body was stored at a local funeral home. Eventually an appeals court agreed with the trial judge pointing out that if St. John had not died right before trial, the defendants would have gone ahead with their defense without the autopsy findings. The grieving family was finally able to bury their father 14 long days later.
I applaud the judges’ decisions in favor of the family but it is unfortunate that they had to endure such a public spectacle in their time of grief. Shame on the defendants and their lawyers for this crass invasion of a family’s privacy at the worst possible time! Too often the defendant seems to have more rights than their victims.
Richard J. Arsenault, 2011
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