Asbestos-Related Cancer Victim Wins Suit

An 83-year-old locksmith was awarded $3.3 million Monday by jurors who found that he developed lung cancer from his exposure to asbestos during his years as a wartime Navy ship repairman, despite the fact that he smoked heavily for 47 years.

Chester Fairchild, who works as a private contractor for Orange County following his retirement several years ago, convinced a Los Angeles Superior Court jury that his constant exposure to asbestos fibers while repairing Navy ships led to the cancer diagnosed earlier this year.

“It’s a Christmas present with a black lining because he knows it’s going to be his last Christmas present,” his attorney, Aaron H. Simon, said of the jury’s 11-1 verdict, reached after two days of deliberations.

Fairchild, who claims “you can’t sit down in a rocking chair somewhere or you’re gone,” was at work when the jury reached its verdict.

“I think it’s very nice,” he said of the award, which will be offset by about $65,000 in earlier settlements with other asbestos manufacturers. “I was surprised in a way, but when you stop to think, when somebody tells you you have two months to a year to live, it’s not too much.”

The elderly Anaheim resident began his career with the Navy in 1922, serving through the end of World War II and again from 1950 to 1952.

During a three-week trial before Judge Bruce R. Geernaert, evidence was presented showing that Fairchild often had to work with thermal insulation products containing asbestos, frequently in extremely confined work spaces. He slept in a bunk on the Navy ship California just inches below asbestos-insulated water pipes.

But it was not until three days after Christmas last year, when Fairchild began experiencing chest pains, loss of appetite and breathing difficulties, that the memory of those years in the Navy came rushing back, Simon said.

At first, Fairchild was diagnosed as having a disease of the lung lining commonly associated with asbestos. But later it became clear that he had a type of lung cancer that spreads to the lung lining--a type that is not nearly so common among asbestos victims and much more prevalent among cigarette smokers, attorneys said.

Lawyers for the eight asbestos companies liable for damages argued that it was Fairchild’s heavy smoking--a pack a day for 47 years, plus 50 cigars a month for more than five years--that was actually responsible for his illness.

But Fairchild, Simon argued, had quit smoking several years before his cancer was diagnosed. In any case, he said, it was only necessary to prove the asbestos was a “substantial factor” in causing the disease.

The attorney representing the asbestos manufacturers could not be reached for comment Monday. But a lawyer for one of the other defendants in the case, who did not wish to be identified, said Fairchild was not able to identify any of the specific asbestos products with which he had come into contact, and thus should not be able to collect damages.

“You have to show a connection to a product, or at least a high degree of probability that a person was exposed to a particular product,” he said.

The manufacturers have already indicated that they will appeal the verdict--meaning Fairchild will almost certainly die before seeing any of the money, Simon said.

“It will go to an estate and be preserved for his family,” Simon said. “He could have accepted a relatively trivial amount (as a settlement) and had some cash in his pocket, but I don’t think the money matters to him as much as the principle.”

“I want to take care of my family, at least,” Fairchild said.