{"id":413,"date":"2014-02-25T10:39:46","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T16:39:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mesotheliomabook.com\/blog\/?p=413"},"modified":"2014-10-29T11:58:15","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T16:58:15","slug":"jury-awards-730000-to-former-boilermaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mesotheliomabook.com\/blog\/jury-awards-730000-to-former-boilermaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury Awards $730,000 to Former Boilermaker, Ship Surveyor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Shipyard\"<\/a>In 2008 Mr. Charles Akins, a retired boilermaker <\/a>and ship surveyor<\/a>, received a dreadful diagnosis that would force him to take a trip down memory lane\u2014all the way back to the 1960s.<\/p>\n

Mr. Akins was diagnosed with peritoneal mesothelioma<\/a>, a type of asbestos-related cancer that affects the peritoneum (lining of the internal organs). Around 30% of\u00a0 mesothelioma patients are afflicted with peritoneal mesothelioma and it is fatal in many cases. However, Mr. Akins has been battling the disease since October 2008, beginning with a procedure called \u201cdebulking surgery.\u201d The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI<\/a>) describes the surgery as:<\/p>\n

\u201cA procedure whereby a surgically incurable malignant neoplasm is partially removed without curative intent in order to make subsequent therapy with drugs, radiation or other adjunctive measures more effective and, thereby, improve the length of survival.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

For more than 30 years, between the 1960s and 1990s, Mr. Akins worked as a boilermaker, ship surveyor, and finally a supervisor at a number of San Francisco Bay Area shipyards. Mr. Akins and his attorneys believed that it was somewhere between 1972 and 1976 that asbestos exposure occurred while Akins was a ship surveyor.<\/p>\n

During this time, the defendant in Akins case\u2014RPI Company (formerly known as Plant Insulation Company), dispatched insulators to Mr. Akins\u2019 region to install and remove asbestos-containing thermal pipe insulation in the boiler rooms of multiple disabled U.S. Navy Ships in the process of being repaired.<\/em><\/p>\n

According to the claim against RPI Company, RPI ignored all asbestos safety protocols mandated by the U.S. Department of Labor\u2019s Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) and <\/b>the United States Navy.<\/p>\n

In the end, a jury agreed that evidence presented by Akins\u2019 attorneys proved that RPI Company (f\/k\/a Plant Insulation Company) was well aware of the dangers of asbestos and asbestos-exposure, and neglected to:<\/p>\n