Ex-Worker Wins $36.5 Million From Company That Hid Asbestos Damage

The verdict was the first of hundreds of cases pending against the company hired to oversee medical care and safety for workers at a mine and mill in Libby, Mont.



The W.R. Grace vermiculite mine near Libby, Mont., emitted asbestos fibers into the air. At least 400 deaths have been documented from asbestos-related causes in Libby.Credit...Daily Inter Lake, via Associated Press

By Jim Robbins
Feb. 25, 2022

HELENA, Mont. — For years, workers employed by W.R. Grace & Company in the mountain town of Libby, Mont., worked in a dust-choked vermiculite mine and mill, not knowing that the raw material for insulation they were mining also contained deadly asbestos fibers.

The company, however, did know. Senior managers made the decision to keep the workers in the dark, according to evidence presented in court over the past several weeks, even as the workers gradually lost their ability to breathe.

The plan, documents and witnesses suggested, kept employees from knowing about early signs of lung scarring that would lead to asbestosis, lung cancer and mesothelioma — until they retired and could no longer make costly workers’ compensation claims.

Last week, a jury in State District Court in Great Falls, Mont., awarded a former laborer $36.5 million in damages, agreeing that the mining company’s workers’ compensation insurer, which also consulted on safety and medical issues for W.R. Grace, had failed to warn workers that they were at risk of deadly illness. Hundreds more cases against the insurer, Maryland Casualty Company, which is now part of Zurich Insurance, are still awaiting trial.

FULL story: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/us/asbestos-libby-montana.html?campaign_id=2&emc=edit_th_20220226&instance_id=54362&nl=todaysheadlines®i_id=58529908&segment_id=84038&user_id=056e064c54b8baeaaaf1a500bc480b4d