Meso: A Primer
As far back as the early 1900's, corporations knew of the dangers associated with exposure to asbestos containing products. Yet every year, including this year, as many as 3,000 people are diagnosed with
asbestos-related cancer.
The reason is that corporations, with full knowledge of the dangers made a deliberate decision to expose employees to asbestos containing products and those workers today are paying the ultimate price with their life. If you worked as a pipe fitter, steam fitter, changed brake pads, broiler maker, in construction or demolition trade chances are pretty good that you were exposed to asbestos.
One of the most serious forms of asbestos related cancer is known as
Mesothelioma; which quite literally means "cancer of the mesothelium".
Now the mesothelium is the lining of most of our internal organs and
Mesothelioma can take several different forms.
The most common of these is known as "pleural" which is cancer of the
lungs. It can also take the form of "peritoneal" which is a cancer
affecting the internal lining of our abdomen or "pericardial" cancer
which is cancer of the heart.
Regardless of the form, of Mesothelioma, if you have this disease, you
are more likely than not exposed to asbestos.
There is a period of time, which is referred to latency period, that
quite simply refers to the time you were exposed to asbestos and when
you were diagnosed with Mesothelioma. That period of time can be
between 20-40 years, because that is such a long time frame that
presents special problems for us in determining when you were exposed
and what products you were to. Even though the latency period is long
the period of time between diagnoses to death is generally very, very
short, which means we have to work fast with the time that we have.
Posted by: Tom Methvin, Esquire of www.beasleyallen.com
Tom was the lead lawyer in a landmark predatory lending case involving a door-to-door sales and finance scam. The verdict of $581 million was the largest in the history of the state of Alabama at the time. As a result of this litigation, the defendant finance company quit these types of activities in the State of Alabama.
Tom was also co-counsel in other consumer fraud cases resulting in verdicts of 50 million, 45 million, 34.5 million, 25.4 million and 15 million. Tom has tried a total of thirteen cases that have resulted in verdicts in excess of one million dollars.
Since 1998, Tom has been the managing shareholder of the firm. He helped organize the firm into sections based on types of cases. This has allowed our lawyers to concentrate in certain areas and to be on the cutting edge in their field. He has helped Beasley, Allen become a national powerhouse in representing victims of wrongdoing.
