Page Updated febrero 9, 2026

Shipyard Worker’s Children File Wrongful Death Claim After Father’s Mesothelioma Death

Página revisada y editada por

Abogado de mesotelioma Paul Danziger

The children of Emanuel J. Bourgeois have filed a mesothelioma wrongful death lawsuit against Avondale Shipyard and its insurers following their father’s death from the aggressive, asbestos-related form of cancer. Mr. Bourgeois died less than two weeks after being diagnosed on October 31, 2024.  His family’s claim points to over four decades of occupational and secondary asbestos exposure at the notorious Louisiana shipyard as the cause of his fatal disease.

Mesothelioma Victim’s Four-Decade Career at Avondale Shipyard

Errol J. Bourgeois, Sr. and Mary Anne Bourgeois Richardson filed their wrongful death claim in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, detailing their father’s painful mesothelioma death and the extensive exposición al amianto he experienced during his 42-year career at Avondale Shipyard. The mesothelioma lawsuit asserts that Emanuel Bourgeois held a variety of positions at the shipyard from 1963 to 2005, and that throughout his lengthy employment, each exposed him to the deadly asbestos fibers that had been extensively used in in the yard’s shipbuilding and repair operations.

Avondale Shipyard, located in New Orleans, has faced thousands of mesothelioma lawsuits over the last several decades due to its historic use of asbestos-containing materials in ship construction. The shipyard built and repaired naval vessels and commercial ships from 1938 until its closure in 2014. Its workers were routinely exposed to asbestos in insulation, gaskets, pipe coverings, and numerous other shipbuilding components. Shipyard workers like Bourgeois faced particularly severe risks because they labored in confined spaces that concentrated the toxic fibers that became airborne during cutting, grinding, and installation activities.

The mesothelioma contamination at Avondale was so pervasive that its health impacts extended beyond the shipyards’ workers: Many family members also developed asbestos diseases through secondary exposure—a pattern that was also noted in the Bourgeois family’s claim.

Shipyard Workers’ Mesothelioma Developed from Both Occupational and Secondary Exposure

The family’s wrongful death lawsuit emphasizes that Emanuel Bourgeois faced asbestos exposure beyond his own shipyard work, and blamed his mesothelioma on both occupational exposure he’d experienced and secondary exposure to asbestos from other Avondale workers. It cites both asbestos carried on the clothing of fellow workers, whom he rode to and from work with, and through contact with family members who’d also been employed at Avondale: his brother Errol, who worked there from 1962 to 1997, and his brother Joseph, who worked there from 1963 to 1997.

Secondary asbestos exposure refers to illnesses caused by exposure to asbestos fibers carried into the victim’s presence, without them having worked with the toxic material. The most common vehicle for this exposure is asbestos fibers carried home on workers’ clothing, hair, skin, and personal belongings. The Bourgeois’ mesothelioma lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs’ father experienced this secondary exposure both through direct contact with his brothers and from washing and handling their asbestos-contaminated clothes and other objects—a common scenario in shipyard families, where multiple members worked in the same contaminated facility. Secondary asbestos exposure has been recognized in numerous mesothelioma claims: Courts have established that employers have a duty to protect not just workers but also their family members from foreseeable asbestos exposure through contaminated work clothing.

Mesothelioma Lawsuit Alleges Multiple Corporate Failures

The Bourgeois’ wrongful death claim accuses Avondale Shipyard, its officers, insurers, and other defendants of numerous failures that caused Emanuel Bourgeois’s mesothelioma death, including failing to reveal medical information about asbestos dangers, failing to disclose asbestos’s risks to workers and their families, and failing to provide necessary protections to all three Bourgeois brothers who worked at the facility.