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Fort Lauderdale, FL— Attorneys Tuesday debated who was responsible for a Florida woman’s terminal cancer, as trial opened against the maker of a brake-grinding tool that the woman says exposed her to asbestos. Cook v. Hennessy Industries, et al. CACE24003818.
Denise Cook, 64, has been diagnosed with mesothelioma, which she contends she developed after years of exposure to asbestos in dust from work her family did on car brakes when she was a youngster. Cook contends the maker of the brake-grinding tool she says her father used for years, Hennessy Industries-owned Ammco, is responsible for her disease by failing to warn of the potentially deadly fallout caused by brake-grinding.
During Tuesday’s openings, Cook's attorney, Ryan Sweet, of Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, walked jurors through evidence he said showed Cook was exposed to asbestos during the 1960s and 70s while in the auto shop her father worked at and by doing laundry contaminated with dust from brakes that had been ground by an Ammco machine.
Sweet told jurors Ammco knew or should have known that its machines could put asbestos from brakes into the air and potentially cause mesothelioma, but failed to warn sufficiently of the dangers of the grinders’ use.
“What would a reasonable brake-grinding company do?” Sweet asked. “[It would] warn you that using a grinder on asbestos is going to put you in grave danger. That’s what’s reasonable.”
But the defense pushed back on claims Ammco was responsible for Cook's disease. In his opening Tuesday, Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani’s Edward Slaughter walked jurors through evidence he said showed Cook was likely exposed to asbestos through a number of other sources, including cosmetic talc products and auto body filler.
And, he told jurors Ammco responded properly when, in 1972, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration first issued relevant asbestos regulations. Slaughter told jurors that in 1973 the company tested its products, began putting warnings on new tools, and sent representatives to visit customers they knew who had bought brake grinders in the past.
“Ammco acted responsibly, above and beyond: testing, warnings, going door-to-door,” Slaughter said. “That’s what a good company does.”
Trial is expected to last between two and three weeks.
Email Arlin Crisco at acrisco@cvn.com.
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