BNSF Railway has filed an appeal of an $8 million jury verdict that found the company contributed to the deaths of two people who were exposed to asbestos decades ago when mining material was shipped by rail through Libby, Montana.
The appeal filed Thursday will delay the start of a similar case in Missoula, Montana, that was set to begin this month.
BNSF did not immediately respond to a request for comment from FreightWaves.
On April 22, a federal jury in Helena, Montana, said asbestos-contaminated vermiculite that spilled in the railyard in Libby was a substantial factor in the illnesses and deaths of the two plaintiffs, Thomas Wells and Joyce Walder.
The jury awarded $4 million each in compensatory damages to the estates of Wells and Walder. Both Wells and Walder, who both lived near a BNSF railyard and were diagnosed with mesothelioma, died in 2020.
Lawyers for Wells and Walder argued during the hearing that BNSF knew the vermiculite contaminated with asbestos was harmful but didn’t properly clean up the railyard. While the jury did find BNSF Railway was negligent, it didn’t find that the railroad acted intentionally or with indifference and did not award punitive damages to the plaintiffs.
“They [the jury] had the difficult task of evaluating conduct that occurred more than 50 years ago, before BNSF ever existed,” Kendall Sloan, a BNSF spokesperson, told The Associated Press.
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The Texas-based railroad is facing numerous lawsuits related to alleged health issues from asbestos contamination, according to McGarvey Law, which is handling hundreds of claims against BNSF.
“From 1923 to 1990, asbestos-contaminated vermiculite was extracted from a large mine in Libby’s Rainy Creek drainage, which was operated first by the Zonolite Company and later by W.R. Grace,” the firm stated. “Employees of W.R. Grace and Libby residents alike were exposed to asbestos fibers in dust that rose from the vermiculite as it was mined just outside of town and transported in uncovered chutes and on rail cars through downtown Libby.”
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