PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, July 28, 2011 – Today, a Federal Magistrate Judge in the U.S. Judicial Panel on Asbestos Products Liability Multi-District Litigation recommended the denial of summary judgment for defendant Crane, Co., in an asbestos lawsuit1 filed by the law firm of Levy Konigsberg LLP (“LK”), on behalf of a career submariner in the U.S. Navy who is suffering from mesothelioma.
The plaintiff in this lawsuit, Alan Donn, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and served as an officer in the U.S. Navy for 20 years. During his Navy career, Mr. Donn, a resident of Groton, Connecticut, served aboard several nuclear submarines, including the USS Theodore Roosevelt (SSBN 600), USS Greenling (SSN 614), USS Robert E. Lee (SSBN 601), USS Flying Fish (SSN 673), USS Narwhal (SSN 671), and USS Billfish (SSN 676).
During the course of his service, Mr. Donn worked around both naval and shipyard personnel working on various pieces of equipment and machinery using asbestos-containing gaskets, packing, and thermal insulation, including steam piping, pumps, valves, turbines, generators, steam traps, and air compressors. Although Mr. Donn, as an officer, did not generally work hands-on with asbestos-containing materials himself, he supervised and stood to watch while others did so, including during new construction and major overhauls of submarines. As a result of such “bystander asbestos exposure“, Mr. Donn later developed mesothelioma, asbestos-caused cancer that occurs most commonly in the pleura or peritoneum that line the lungs and abdominal cavities, respectively.
Mesothelioma lawyers at LK filed suit on Mr. Donn’s behalf against both the manufacturers of the equipment aboard the submarines, on which Mr. Donn worked, as well as the owner of the New London, Connecticut, and Quincy, Massachusetts, shipyards, at which work was performed on these submarines.
Crane, Co., a manufacturer of asbestos-containing valves used aboard several of the submarines, on which Mr. Donn served, filed a motion asking the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania for an order granting summary judgment in its favor. Crane argued that there was insufficient evidence that Mr. Donn was exposed to asbestos from its products. Mr. Donn’s mesothelioma attorneys from LK opposed Crane Co.’s motion, pointing out that Mr. Donn testified that he was present for work on valves hundreds of times during his career and that approximately 75% of those valves were manufactured by Crane Co.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth T. Hey issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that Crane Co.’s motion be denied. If the United States District Court adopts Judge Hey’s recommendation, Mr. Donn’s asbestos lawsuit against Crane Co. will continue to go forward toward trial.
Mr. Donn is represented by mesothelioma lawyer Amber Long of Levy Konigsberg LLP, a New York City-based law firm that has been specializing in representing victims of mesothelioma for more than twenty-five years.
For more information about this or other mesothelioma lawsuits, please contact Levy Konigsberg LLP at (800) 315-3806 or 1-800-MESOLAW (1-800-637-6529), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
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