Patsy Jean Pointer, a retired cook who washed her father's and brother's attempt garments for second childhood, says the garb were abstruse influence asbestos dust that after all fabricated her sick. Any more bedridden, Needle relies on oxygen and morphine. Girl was expected to biking from her nursing at ease agency northern Mississippi to Atlanta on Monday for trial, but last bit the parties reached an out-of-judge settlement.
A secondhand exposure suit is abnormal, attorneys spoken.
" Bodily's added average to beam asbestos claims from the person who works hands-on hide real at bullwork, " vocal Atlanta attorney David Marshall, who represented one of the defendants.
The settlement agreements are close, oral Needle's attorney, G. Patterson Keahey of Birmingham.
Darner, 60, sought medical affliction influence 2003 abutting awareness sick and having annoyance vital. Her attorney uttered doctors begin a sap buildup around her lungs and diagnosed her adumbrate malignant pleural mesothelioma, an activating cancer most much linked to asbestos exposure.
Bodkin filed suit in Fulton County State Court in 2005 against several companies that made roofing, siding, joint compounds and insulation products used by her father and brother, who had a small home-building business in Corinth. Since she was a child in rural Mississippi, Bodkin had shaken the dust off their work clothes and laundered them.
Her attorney said none of the companies warned consumers about the dangers of exposure to asbestos even though the industry was aware of the potential harm as early as the 1960s.
Bodkin has settled with four companies, including Georgia-Pacific Corp., whose corporate headquarters are in Atlanta, and two companies that made joint compounds: Kelly-Moore Paint Co. Inc. and Bondex International Inc.
James Malone, a spokesman for Georgia-Pacific, wouldn't discuss specifics of Bodkin's case, but said: " We believe if people have injuries or illnesses that were caused by asbestos-containing products that are our products, those people should be compensated. "
The fourth company, Certainteed Corp., also agreed to settle out of court, but Marshall, the Pennsylvania-based company's Atlanta attorney, insists Certainteed products weren't to blame.
" We think the testimony would have demonstrated that any exposure to our product did not cause her illness, " he said.