10 Million Dollar Mesothelioma Verdict Against RTV

By: Chris Placitella @ Jun 01, 2015

Trial team leader, Don Blydenburgh assisted by attorney Arthur Prystowsky and paralegal Lauren Brady obtained a $10.55 million verdict against R.T. Vanderbilt in Schenectady, New York. The plaintiff Richard Chisholm died from pleural mesothelioma at the age of 52 after being exposed to RTV talc while working at a ceramic manufacturing facility in Ohio during summers while in high school. The owner of the store identified RTV talc, which was corroborated by sales records, and testified that if he had known that the RTV talc could give his workers cancer he never would have bought it. RTV’s bags of asbestos contaminated talc carried no warnings about asbestos, even though RTV repeatedly received tests results showing their talc contained significant amounts of asbestos. RTV tried to point the finger at the 23 days Mr. Chisholm spent in the navigation room of a ship while in the ROTC, but the defense’s own expert witness, Drew Van Orden, found anthophylite asbestos in Mr. Chisholm’s lung tissue – one of the main types of asbestos known to be present in RTV talc.