Defense claims illiterate Mississippi offshore worker didn’t deserve equal protection

It was bad enough that Thomas “Tony” Brown, Jr. contracted asbestosis which forces him to use oxygen round the clock.

That the defendants in his asbestos lawsuit claimed he did not deserve equal protection under the law because he could not read as a teenager is rubbing salt into the wound.

The Smith County (MS) jury did not buy that claim and on May 10, 2011, awarded Brown $322 million—the single largest plaintiff’s asbestos in U.S. history. The amount was for pain and suffering, future medical expenses and punitive damages.

Brown, 48, of Brookhaven, Mississippi, contracted the illness after handling asbestos in drilling mud while working as a roughneck in the Gulf of Mexico and on rigs in Mississippi from 1979 to 1986. The mud was manufactured by Union Carbide and sold by CP Chem., the defendants. Both companies allegedly continued to market the product well after they knew about the asbestos dangers, said the plaintiff’s attorney. The jury found the companies liable for defective product design and failure to provide a sufficient warning.

When Brown began working at age 16 in the oil field as a floor hand, he couldn’t read and write. The defendants tried to use his illiteracy against him, arguing that he was not entitled to protection under a Mississippi statute which requires defendants to warn employees about known asbestos dangers.

Source: Yahoo News