Asbestos News Roundup: 9.20.12 – Pipefitter Asbestos Risk, Canadian Ban

September 20th, 2012. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of. An ongoing list of reported asbestos hot spots in the US from the Asbestos News Roundup archive appears on our asbestos map.

Pipefitters, Boiler and Furnace Technicians Asbestos Disease Risk

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, insulation blankets (the outside covering or shell), door gaskets, duct insulation, and tape at duct connections of furnaces and boilers can all contain asbestos. Technicians who worked on repairing boilers and furnaces in the past would have been at risk for asbestos exposure.

Asbestos was used between 1930 and 1972 as high-temperature insulation for oil, coal, or wood furnaces, generally found in older homes. Steam and hot water pipes were insulated with asbestos-containing material, particularly at elbows, tees, and valves. Pipes may also be wrapped in an asbestos “blanket”, or asbestos paper (which looks very much like corrugated cardboard). Asbestos-containing insulation has also been used on and inside round and rectangular furnace ducts. Sometimes the duct itself may be made of asbestos-containing materials.

This week, a long-running asbestos lawsuit was settled. The lawsuit, brought by retired pipefitter and contractor Robert Kreimer, who is now approximately 77 years old, involved numerous defendants, who were charged with being responsible for Kreimer’s asbestos mesothelioma.

Asbestos Lawsuits

Charleston, WV: A total of 71 companies have been names as defendants in an asbestos lawsuit filed by a couple from South Shore, KY. James D. Holbrook, who was diagnosed with esophageal cancer on August 23, 2011, claims the defendants are responsible for the diagnosis.

In their lawsuit, Holbrook and his wife, Guyneth Marie Holbrook, allege he was exposed to asbestos during his employment as a laborer and worker from 1956 until 1987.

The defendants are being sued based on theories of negligence, contaminated buildings, breach of expressed/implied warranty, strict liability, intentional tort, conspiracy, misrepresentations and post-sale duty to warn, according to the lawsuit. Certain defendants are also being sued as premises owners and as James Holbrook’s employers for deliberate intent/intentional tort, according to the lawsuit.

The 71 companies named as defendants in the suit are A.K. Steel Corporation; 3M Company; Ajax Magnathermic Corp.; Amdura Corporation; A.W. Chesterton Company; Beazer East, Inc.; Bechtel Corporation; Brand Insulations, Inc.; Bucyrus International, Inc.; BW IP, Inc.; CBS Corporation; Catalytic Construction Company; Caterpiller, Inc.; Certainteed Corporation; Cleaver-Brooks Company, Inc.; Columbus McKinnon Corporation; Copes-Vulcan, Inc.; Crane Company; Crown, Cork & Seal USA, Inc.; Cyclops Corporation; Detroit Steel, Inc.; Dravo Corporation; Eaton Corporation; Flowserve Corporation f/k/a the Duriron Company, Inc.; Flowserve Corporation as Successor-In-Interest to Durametallic Corporation; Foseco, Inc.; Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation; General Electric Company; General Refractories Company; Georgia-Pacific LLC; Geo. V. Hamilton, Inc.; Goulds Pumps, Inc.; Grinnell, LLC; Hercules, Inc.; Honeywell International f/k/a Allied Signal, Inc.; Honeywell International, Inc.; IMO Industries, Inc.; Industrial Holdings Corporation; Ingersoll-Rand Company; Insul Company, Inc.; ITT Corporation; J.H. France Refractories Company; Lockheed Martin Corporation; McJunkin Corporation; Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; Morgan Engineering, Inc.; Nitro Industrial Coverings, Inc.; Oakfabco, Inc.; Oglebay Norton Company; Ohio Valley Insulating Company, Inc.; Owens-Illinois, Inc.; Pneumo Abex, LLC; Premiere Refractories, Inc.; Rapid American Corporation; Riley Power Inc.; Rockwell Automation, Inc.; Rust Constructors, Inc.; Rust Engineering & Construction, Inc.; Rust International, Inc.; Schneider Electric; State Electric Supply Company; Swindell Dressler International Corporation; Tasco Insulations, Inc.; Thiem Corp.; UB West Virginia, Inc.; Union Carbide Chemical and Plastics Company, Inc.; Uniroyal, Inc.; United Engineers & Constructors and Washington Group International; Vimasco Corporation; West Virginia Electric Supply Company; and Yarway Corporation.(wvrecord.com)

Asbestos Settlements

Madison, IL: A settlement has been reached in an asbestos mesothelioma lawsuit brought by Robert Kreimer and his wife, Margie Kreimer, of Cleveland, OH. In their lawsuit, filed in November 2010, the couple sued 66 corporate defendants, and all but two defendants —mechanical seal manufacturer John Crane Co. and metal valve maker Crane Co.—had settled or had been dismissed earlier.

Born in 1935, Robert Kreimer, now approximately 77 years old, alleges he suffers from mesothelioma. From 1956-1986 he worked as a pipefitter for various contractors, including Johnson Controls, Robert Shaw, EJ Nolan, M.W. Kellogg Piping, Bechtel, Combustion Engineering, Babcock & Wilcox and Kaiser Engineering and various industrial and commercial job sites in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

The lawsuit states that the defendants should have anticipated the plaintiff’s exposure to asbestos fibers. The lawsuit also claims that defendants agreed and “conspired among themselves” and with other asbestos manufacturers, distributors, and trade organizations, to injure the plaintiff.

The suit was settled this week and to date no details of the settlement have been released. (madisonrecord.com)

Asbestos News

Canada will no longer oppose global regulations restricting the use and shipment of asbestos. The news came following the election of a new government to the province of Quebec, which is home to Canada’s asbestos industry. The incoming Parti Québécois said it would cancel the federal loan and ban asbestos production and exports outright. As a result, federal Industry Minister Christian Paradis announced that the federal government will no longer support the asbestos industry.

According to a report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, “…Paradis said his Conservatives are reversing course and won’t use their veto to stop chrysotile asbestos from being listed as a hazardous substance under the international Rotterdam Convention.

Paradis also said Ottawa will invest up to $50 million to help the country’s last remaining asbestos mining region, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, to diversify into other areas of activity.”

The Harper government had consistently blocked the chrysotile form of asbestos from being listed under the Rotterdam Convention. The convention requires consensus of its members to list a substance; the convention already covers five other forms of asbestos. (cbc.ca)

10 Biggest SEC Securities Settlements So Far This Year

September 20th, 2012. By AbiK

If you’ve been wondering what the largest SEC securities settlements have been for the first half of the year, the National Economic Research Associates, Inc., (NERA) recently released it’s mid-year update. NERA has a proprietary database of SEC settlements and judgments going back to July 21, 2002, and they track SEC settlement trends each year.

According to the NERA report for the first half of 2012, there are some interesting trends to keep an eye on:

• The SEC is on pace to settle with more defendants in FY12 than it has in any year since FY05.

• This increase is being driven by heightened settlement activity with individuals, particularly for allegations related to insider trading and Ponzi schemes; the SEC is on pace for a record number of insider trading settlements in FY12.

• The median settlement value with individuals continued to follow the upward path observed since FY10, while the median value of settlements with companies declined after reaching a record value in FY11.

• The largest settlements in 1H12 are the highly publicized settlements with Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. ($285 million), still under appeal after being rejected by Judge Jed Rakoff, and Raj Rajaratnam ($92.8 million).

The 10 largest SEC securities settlements for the first six months of the year were:

	Settling Defendant	Announcement Date	Settlement  Amount	Allegation
	1. Citigroup Global Markets Inc.	10/19/11	$285M	Financial Services Misrepresentation to Customers
	2. Raj Rajaratnam, Galleon Management, LP	11/8/11	$92.81M	Insider Trading
	3. Magyar Telekom	12/29/11	$90.80M	FCPA
	4. George David Gordon, Attorney	2/16/12	$50.51M	Market Manipulation
	5. Wachovia Bank N.A.	12/8/11	$46.08M	Trading Violations
	6. Pentagon Capital Management	3/30/12	$42.05M	Market Timing/Late Trading
	7. GE Funding Capital Market Services	12/23/11	$24.90M	Market Manipulation
	8. MAAA Trust1	12/22/11	$24.75M	Insider Trading
	9. Aon Corporation	12/20/11	$14.55M	FCPA
	10. Joseph F. Skowron III, Portfolio Manager, FrontPoint Partners, LLC	11/17/11	$13.37M	Insider Trading
	1Settlements that included a jointly liable individual.
	Read the full NERA Report here.

KFC: Hoax Or We Do Chicken Raw? Nasty Pic Looks Like Salmonella To Go

September 18th, 2012. By AbiK

It’s bad enough when mango or cantaloupe recalls are on just about every salmonella email alert. But this photo of a KFC chicken sandwich allegedly served up raw in Ontario is quite another thing, and it’s pretty nasty.

Now, we do not have confirmation that this did, indeed, happen—the image originally posted on Reddit user boneriffic12‘s page a few days ago. And it’s making the internet rounds having been picked up by HuffPo and Q13 Fox out of Seattle. The pic was posted with this message:

“Fried Chicken #FAIL. My friend ordered a chicken burger from KFC & it came back raw. Yes he ate that bite that’s missing.”

So hoax or horror, you be the judge for now.

What it does bring to mind, however, is the recent case of the little Australian girl who had allegedly suffered brain damage as a result of salmonella poisoning stemming from a KFC chicken wrap sandwich she had eaten. The girl, Monika Samaan was just 7 years old when she ate a chicken wrap purchased at a KFC in Australia in 2005. She was hospitalized in serious condition and spent months in a coma. The judge ruled in favor of the victim, awarding her 8 million Australian dollars.

KFC has said it will appeal the judge’s decision.

And, in the midst of all this, just last week WFAA-TV (Dallas/Fort Worth) published an investigation they did regarding reports of spoiled chicken meat—the reports were coming from KFC employees, not patrons. Apparently, some of the KFC workers had noticed a “stench” coming from the walk-in cooler which housed the raw chicken meat. According to the workers, KFC has a policy that raw meat must be used within 10 days of being killed; however, workers claimed that some meat was still being cooked—and served—after sitting for up to 16 days.

The Conroe KFC is a franchise owned by Tem-Kil, Inc. Both Tem-Kil and KFC declined to speak on-camera with WFAA’s I-Team, but both, no surprise, expressed their commitment to high food safety standards. KFC also shut down the Conroe outlet for a week to investigate the charges and to provide additional food safety training to workers there.

Since the reopening of the Conroe KFC, health inspectors have visited the restaurant and did not find any food safety violations.

UPDATE: (9/18/12) We received this email from Doug Hernandez—the guy who holding the chicken in the picture above. Here’s what he had to say:

The KFC chicken sandwich that you posted on your site is actually my picture, and it is a real picture unfortunately. I did not think that it was going to get this much attention until my friend Greg mentioned that he had posted it on reddit.com.

The incident actually happened on August 31st, I originally filled out the feedback form on KFC’s website, but did not get a call or email. I posted the picture on the KFC Canada Facebook page, and got a response from them asking that I call the 1-800 number. I did and they filed a report and said they would be in touch with me. I have not heard back from them yet, that was on September 4th. I hope they will be getting back to me soon. That’s all I have on this so far for an update.

Guess we’ll see what happens…

 

 

Student Slam List: Will it Take a Lawsuit for Ladue to Wake Up re Bullying?

September 17th, 2012. By AbiK

A recent report sheds light on a slam list that allegedly targets several girls at the end of their junior year at Ladue Horton Watkins High School in Ladue, MO; the list apparently includes info about hygiene habits and other vulgarities about the girls. Most folks would use one word to describe such behavior: bullying; the parents of the girls being targeted probably have another word in mind: outrage.

One mother—the mother of a boy, btw—does consider it an outrage and she isn’t taking too kindly to the annually produced list. Ruth Alhemeier took her concerns to the Ladue high school principal, Bridget Hermann. The response? In essence, that the list’s been coming out for years and that not much can be done about it…that the school cannot “control the behavior of every single individual student”. (Guess she hasn’t heard of that thing called “zero-tolerance policy” that states like NJ have—?)

True, the Ladue school certainly does not create or distribute the list—the list is created anonymously and distributed “secretly”—but the school environment is clearly ground zero it and it appears the school administration is well aware of it.

So far there doesn’t seem to be any formal, public action taken—and Alhemeier’s keeping her eye on things. She’s ready to to file a federal civil rights complaint under Title IX if need be.

Take a look at the video clip below—is the school system doing enough? Can it do more? Should it do more? You be the judge.

Asbestos News Roundup: 9.13.12 – Electrician Asbestos Risk

September 13th, 2012. By LucyC

A roundup of recent asbestos-related news and information that you should be aware of. An ongoing list of reported asbestos hot spots in the US from the Asbestos News Roundup archive appears on our asbestos map.

Electrician Asbestos Exposure Risk

Electricians and electrical cable installers may not know it, but they are at risk for being exposed to asbestos through repair, demolition or installation work. This lethal, fibrous material was used in felted asbestos insulation or asbestos tape to insulate wiring. So working on old power lines, old wiring or breaker boxes would put electricians at risk for asbestos exposure. Older arc chutes also contain asbestos. It was used in circuit breakers, for example, before the mid-1980′s, when they were made of asbestos-containing plastic molding compound.

Recently, an asbestos lawsuit was filed by the spouse of an electrician in Tennessee. John Elmer Simons died just months after being diagnosed with asbestos mesothelioma—and his spouse has named 76 companies as being responsible.

Asbestos Lawsuits

Charleston, WV: Willie H. Simons, the spouse of the recently deceased John Elmer Simons, of Signal Mountain, TN, has filed an asbestos lawsuit alleging 76 companies caused Mr. Simons’ mesothelioma diagnosis and death.

Mr. Simons was diagnosed with asbestos mesothelioma on April 28, and subsequently died on June 27, according to the lawsuit.

Willie H. Simons alleges John Simons was exposed to asbestos during his employment as an electrician from 1953 until 1992. The defendants are being sued based on theories of negligence, contaminated buildings, breach of expressed/implied warranty, strict liability, intentional tort, conspiracy, misrepresentations and post-sale duty to warn, according to the lawsuit.

The 76 defendants named in the suit are A.W. Chesterton Company; Air & Liquid Systems Corporation; American Producers Supply WV, LLC; Armstrong International, Inc.; Aurora Pump Company; Bayer Cropscience LP; Bechtel Corporation; BW IP, Inc.; Catalytic Construction Company; Caterpillar, Inc.; Certainteed Corporation; Cleaver-Brooks Company, Inc.; Copes-Vulcan, Inc.; Crane Co.; Dravo Corporation; E.I. Dupont De Nemours & Co.; Eaton Electrical, Inc.; Flowserve US, Inc. f/k/a Durco International, Inc.; Flowserve US, Inc. f/k/a Flowserve FSD Corporation; Fluor Enterprises, Inc.; Fluor Enterprises, Inc., as successor-in-interest to Fluor Daniel; FMC Corporation; Foster Wheeler Energy Corporation; Gardner Denver, Inc.; General Electric Company; Goulds Pumps, Inc.; Grinnell Corporation; Hercules, Inc.; Howden Buffalo, Inc.; I.U. North America, Inc.; IMO Industries, Inc.; Inductotherm Industries, Inc.; Industrial Holdings Corporation; Ingersoll-Rand Company; ITT Corporation; Joy Technologies, Inc.; Lockheed Martin Corporation; McJunkin Corporation; Metropolitan Life Insurance Company; Nitro Industrial Coverings, Inc.; Ohio Valley Insulating Company, Inc.; Owens-Illinois, Inc.; P&H Mining Equipment, Inc.; Pettibone/Traverse Left, LLC; Premier Refractories, Inc.; Rapid American Corporation; Reading Crane and Engineering Company; Riley Power Inc.; Rockwell Automation, Inc.; Rust Constructors, Inc.; Rust Engineering & Construction, Inc.; Schneider Electric USA, Inc.; Seco/Warwick Corporation; Spirax Sarco, Inc.; State Electric Supply Company; Sterling Fluid Systems, LLC; Sunbeam Corporation; Surface Combustion, Inc.; Swindell Dressler International Company; Tasco Insulations, Inc.; the Alliance Machine Company; the Chapman Valve Manufacturing Company; the Gage Company; the Nash Engineering Company; the William Powell Company; Trane U.S. Inc.; UB West Virginia, Inc.; Uniroyal, Inc.; United Engineers & Constructors and Washington Group International; Viacom, Inc.; Viking Pump, Inc.; Vimasco Corporation; Warren Pumps; West Virginia Electric Supply; Yarway Corporation; and Zurn Industries, Inc. (wvrecord.com)

San Antonio, TX: The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited seven construction companies—three Miami-based contractors and four San Antonio-based subcontractors—with 45 serious and one other-than-serious violation for exposing workers to asbestos hazards at a San Antonio construction work site. Proposed penalties total $148,000.

“Asbestos is an extremely hazardous material that can potentially cause lifelong, irreversible health conditions,” said John Hermanson, OSHA’s regional administrator in Dallas. “It is imperative that OSHA’s safety and health standards be followed to avoid accidents, injuries and illnesses.”

In response to a referral by the Texas Department of State Health Services, OSHA’s San Antonio Area Office initiated a safety and health inspection in March at the Reserves at Pecan Valley apartment complex located on East Southcross Boulevard. Inspectors found that workers were remodeling apartments without the use of proper clothing and respiratory equipment that would protect them from exposure to asbestos.

Specifically, the violations include failing to abate asbestos hazards and ensure that employees work in regulated areas, perform air monitoring for asbestos exposure, use the required engineering controls to prevent exposure, require the use of proper respiratory and personal protective equipment, train workers on the hazards of working with asbestos and ensure that an asbestos assessment is performed by a qualified person. A serious violation occurs when there is a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result from a hazard about which the employer knew or should have known.

The Miami-based contractors have been cited for a total of 14 violations: Newport Property Ventures LLC has been issued citations carrying $36,100 in fines for eight serious and one other than serious violation; Newport Property Construction LLC has been fined $12,600 for two serious violations and Jamesboys Inc. has been issued citations carrying $18,900 in fines for three serious violations.

The San Antonio subcontractors have been cited for a total of 32 violations: Alex Vega doing business as Alco Painting & Remodeling has been issued citations carrying $28,200 in fines for 11 serious violations; Luis Lozada has been issued citations with $20,400 in fines for eight serious violations; Frank Gonzalez has been issued citations with $9,600 in fines for four serious violations; and Clemente Covarrubias, doing business as Knock It Out, has been issued citations with $22,200 in fines for nine serious violations. (WorkersCompensation.com)