When James Lovelace was 10 years old, he loved to help his father, a big-rig truck driver, service
his trucks. This included handling brake components that contained asbestos. Now 66 years old, Mr. Lovelace is a victim of the malignant cancer, mesothelioma.
The brake parts manufacturer, Pneumo Abex, said to the jury, that Lovelace was exposed to asbestos in a lot of other ways besides working with Abex brake parts. In other words, Defendant Abex's claimed that it wasn't the manufacturer's fault that Lovelace suffered from mesothelioma. Rather, it pointed to the general exposure to the deadly material in his house. Through his childhood, Lovelace breathed and touched items that carried asbestos dust from his father's workplace as a forklift operator at Johns Manville asbestos cement pipe plant in Stockton, CA.
After a three week trial, the jury did not buy much of Abex's arguments. It turned around and awarded Mr. Lovelace $1 million for future noneconomic damages, $500,000 for past noneconomic damages; $430,000 for future economic damages; and $144,000 for past economic damages.
The SKWC asbestos injury attorneys congratulate Mr. Lovelace and his team of trial lawyers for this important victory.
