Navy Veteran’s Widow Granted Right to Have her Mesothelioma Lawsuit Heard

Following the mesothelioma death of her Navy veteran husband, Linda Cook filed a negligence lawsuit that accused several companies of having negligently exposed him to asbestos. Despite three of those companies seeking summary judgment of the cases against them, a Massachusetts court determined that their arguments for dismissal fell short and that the claims against them should move forward to be heard by a jury.

Three Asbestos Companies Argue Against Mesothelioma Widow’s Claim

The three companies named in Linda Cook’s mesothelioma lawsuit are each accused of having exposed her late husband Ronald to asbestos during the years that he served in the Navy or in the years thereafter. According to her claim, he served from 1966 through 1968 onboard ships whose boilers were contaminated with asbestos, and later worked to repair small engines that contained asbestos-contaminated parts.

 In response, the companies each offered rebuttals to her mesothelioma claims, with Foster Wheeler Energy arguing that they should be excused from liability because they’d been acting on orders from the Navy, they had no obligation to warn of the dangers of their products. Briggs & Stratton argued that tests they’d commissioned had shown no release of asbestos from the gaskets Mr. Cook had worked with, and DCo LLC said that the widow had no proof of their role in the sale of asbestos-contaminated parts he had worked with.

Judge Denies Petition for Summary Judgment in Navy Veteran’s Mesothelioma Case

In reviewing the arguments submitted by each of the mesothelioma defendants, Senior District Judge Rya W. Nobel of the United States District Court of the District of Massachusetts said that the widow’s claim had raised questions of fact that required consideration by a jury. Among the disparities in each side’s argument was a question of the scientific validity of the test that Briggs & Stratton had conducted, with the widow arguing that because the parts tested had been inappropriately coated in oil during the test, asbestos fibers were prevented from becoming airborne and being detected.