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For twenty years, Lively Neely went to work at the DuPont power plant in Old Hickory, a section of residential Nashville, Tennessee. Each night, Mr. Neely brought home deadly asbestos dust to his wife, Ruby. Their son, Roger Neely filed a lawsuit against Dupont and twenty others that subcontracted at the plant over the years, alleging that the company’s failure to warn its employees of the danger of wearing work clothes home covered in asbestos, caused the  for death of Mrs. Neely.

“DuPont failed to provide any type of warnings or instructions about the safe use of asbestos,” said, the family’s attorney. “With regard to Mrs. Neely, they were allowing workers to go home with asbestos on their clothing, and didn’t provide change of clothing or showers to prevent that from happening.”

Ruby Neely, who recently passed away, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos exposure.

According to the lawsuit, information about the dangers of asbestos had been available to the company as early as the 1930s, but they still weren’t informing insulators on the line of the hazards until the 1970s, when many workers had already died of asbestos-related illnesses.

Mr. Lively Neely cut, molded and fitted asbestos containing insulation and cement onto the various lines at DuPont. He also died of asbestos-related disease and had settled a lawsuit with the company in the 1980s.

The Tennessee Supreme Court decided on a similar case last year in which Amanda Satterfield sued Alcoa claiming she was terminally ill from the asbestos dust her father carried home from work. Though the case was initially dismissed, Tennessee’s highest court disagreed and sent the case back for trial.

On September 21, 2009 a Hamilton County, Tennessee jury returned a record $1.4 million dollar verdict against National Service Industries, doing business as North Brothers. The trial was believed to be only the second asbestos trial in the state of Tennessee over the past15 years. The verdict is believed to be the first asbestos verdict rendered against North Brothers in any state.

The case officially titled Marian H. Jackson, individually and as surviving spouse of Kenneth W. Jackson v. Breeding Insulation Company, Inc. et al., Hamilton County Circuit Court, Division 1, case no. 07C936 was tried over the course of seven days. The jury of twelve then deliberated for nearly two days before reaching its unanimous decision. All of the other defendants in the case except for North Brothers either settled with the plaintiff or else were dismissed prior to the trial.

Mr. Wayne Jackson worked as a pipefitter at Combustion Engineering in Chattanooga from 1952-1986. During that time he was continually exposed to asbestos-containing products, some of which were manufactured or sold by North Brothers.

The jury found that North Brothers sold defective products to Combustion Engineering that Mr. Jackson was exposed to North Brothers’ products, and that North Brothers’ products caused or contributed to Mr. Jackson’s development of mesothelioma (a rare form of cancer that is uniquely associated with asbestos exposure).

During the week of August 10, 2009, a Sangamon County, Illinois jury awarded a former Springfield postal worker and part-time handyman $2 million at the conclusion of an asbestos-exposure trial.

The plaintiff, who lived most of his life in the Williamsville area and on Springfield’s north end, was a night-shift U.S. Postal Service employee from 1966 until retiring in 1992. He testified during the trial before Circuit Judge Pete Cavanagh that he performed various odd jobs during the day, including truck and bus driving and home construction and repair in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s.

The plaintiff alleged in his suit that he had used asbestos-containing pipe manufactured by CertainTeed Corp. and asbestos-containing joint compound made by Bondex International Inc. and Georgia-Pacific Corp., among others.

Asbestos was phased out of the products in 1977.

The plaintiff, who is now 69 and lives in Arkansas, alleged that he had developed incurable pleural mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining, as a result of exposure to the asbestos. He said in his suit that the products contained no warnings concerning the asbestos content, and if there were warnings, they were inadequate.

The jury found Bondex International alone liable and awarded the plaintiff $1.5 million in damages and his wife, $500,000 for loss of consortium. It found CertainTeed and Georgia-Pacific not to be negligent.

The jury award is subject to a reduction of $1.4 million due to prior settlement amounts.