Trial Attorney Chris Placitella on 40 Years Fighting Asbestos Companies

Chris Placitella has represented asbestos victims and their families since 1981. A shareholder at Cohen, Placitella & Roth, P.C. in Philadelphia and a trial lawyer certified by the New Jersey Supreme Court, he has served as lead or co-lead counsel in cases that shaped mass tort litigation, including asbestos, talc, tobacco, and pharmaceutical cases. He is a former President of the New Jersey Association for Justice.

In this interview with MesoWatch, Placitella discusses what corporations knew, how cases are proven decades after exposure, and the emerging connection between talc products and mesothelioma.

All quotes are from the video interview above. Filler words have been removed for readability.

In this interview:

• What Companies Knew
• The Cover-Up
• The Talc Connection
• Hidden Danger in Homes
• How Cases Are Proven
• Finding the Right Lawyer

What Companies Knew

Asked to introduce himself, Placitella starts with history.

“I have been doing this for a long, long time. Probably since about 1981 we’ve been representing asbestos victims and their families, which is pretty early on in the asbestos litigation,” he says. “The first cases, modern cases, were filed probably in the late 1960s, with the very, very first case having been filed back in 1924 by a woman named Nellie Kershaw. And Nellie Kershaw was somebody who worked in the Turner Brothers Asbestos Factory in London, believe it or not. So these cases have been around a long time. Almost a hundred years now.”

When asked at what point companies knew the truth about asbestos, Placitella is direct.

“Some companies we can prove knew about the dangers of asbestos as far back as the 1920s. And then the knowledge increased over time. By the late 1950s, the medical literature was pretty significant that asbestos could cause lung cancer and mesothelioma.”

He points to the work of Dr. Irving Selikoff at Mount Sinai as a turning point.

“In the early 1960s there was a researcher who worked out of Mount Sinai, his name was Dr. Irving Selikoff. I was actually blessed to know him in the latter part of his medical career. And he did a lot of research on construction workers and factory workers and kind of blew the lid off the whole thing, which ultimately led to the enactment of OSHA regulations and the like. But it probably goes back a good 70 to 100 years depending on the company.”

The Cover-Up

When asked whether companies hid this information deliberately, Placitella doesn’t hesitate.

“It’s very disheartening when you see what the truth is. Now, some companies didn’t know and they got the knowledge over time.”

“Some companies clearly knew and made an absolute conscious decision to cover it up. There’s no question about it.”

The Talc Connection

Placitella explains that the scope of asbestos litigation has expanded beyond traditional occupational exposure.

“More recently, in the last number of years, people who actually use talc-related products, it turns out that there was asbestos in those products. And no one, at least on the consumer end, knew that for a very long time.”

He describes the connection to ovarian cancer as well.

“We find out that a lot of women had ovarian cancer, which was linked in workers. Women who worked in factories, the women were developing ovarian cancer if they worked in factories where there was asbestos. And now we see women with ovarian cancer who used various talcum products over the course of their life, and now those links have been made.”

When asked how talc exposure is proven, Placitella describes the process.

“We know, for example, XYZ company got their talc from this mine in Italy or this mine in Vermont, and we know from our information that that mine was contaminated. And if the mine was contaminated, then the product was contaminated. We actually hire microscopists to actually take samples of the product and test it, and they’ll find the asbestos in the product.”

Hidden Danger in Older Homes

Placitella warns that asbestos isn’t just an occupational hazard.

“If your home was built, say, before 1975, the joint compound that used to seal the drywall, one piece to another, up until the mid-70s, that was asbestos-containing. So let’s say you’re going to refurbish a room in your house, your house was built in the early ’70s or the ’60s. I’d be really concerned about just knocking walls out and having people there without some real controls in place.”

He points out that even contractors may not be aware of the risk.

“You have a home improvement contractor in his or her 40s, they have no clue. They go in, they knock out a wall, and they’re releasing asbestos into the environment. So it’s something that people really need to have some knowledge of. And the homeowner should know, because frankly, a contractor, even well-meaning, may not know that that’s actually the case.”

The latency period makes this particularly dangerous. “It takes a minimum of 15 years from exposure for something to happen,” Placitella says.

“You could have been exposed 15 years ago and be perfectly fine walking around, and then tomorrow develop sickness. And 15 is kind of on the low end. It’s usually somewhere between 20 and 40 years.”

How Cases Are Proven

When asked how you prove asbestos exposure that happened 20, 30, or 40 years ago, Placitella walks through the process.

“We do that in a number of ways. One, we talk to the person who was exposed and get their account. Two, we speak to their co-workers. Three, we have the power of a subpoena where we send the subpoenas out and get information. And generally, people who do this, we have extensive national databases.”

He gives a specific example.

“If you say, ‘I worked at Exxon in Bayway, New Jersey,’ we can actually go into our databases and find out whose products were in there, at what point in time, how much asbestos was in the products. So because there’s a long litigation history, there’s actually a lot of information out there.”

Placitella explains how asbestos trust funds work.

“The funds have been established over time from companies who sought protection in the bankruptcy courts. A fund is set up and there’s a claims process. You can get money from the funds in really one of two ways. There are established disease criteria, so if you have mesothelioma, this fund will pay X or Y. And because the funds have extensive databases themselves, let’s say you worked at Con Edison in New York City, that would be a listed, approved work site ahead of time.”

He adds that claimants can also qualify through product identification.

“If you have a recollection of using that product, then you would get money from the fund because you used that product. So either you’re at an approved work site, or you have a specific recollection of using a product that that fund was set up for.”

Finding the Right Lawyer

When asked what someone should do after a mesothelioma diagnosis, Placitella stresses urgency. “The first thing you do, you have to find a lawyer who knows what they’re doing,” he says.

“In most states across the United States, you have two years from the date you are diagnosed to bring a case. If you don’t bring a case within that two-year time frame, then you may be barred from ever bringing the claim.”

He explains that individual lawsuits and trust fund claims are typically pursued simultaneously.

“We generally do both, where we pursue the individual case in court if it’s viable and pursue the settlement funds where appropriate at the same time. So it’s not one or the other.”

As for timeline, Placitella offers realistic expectations.

“You could see settlements in six months or so, but it probably takes to get to trial a minimum of a couple of years. Some places you can get to trial in a year.”

If a patient passes away during the process, the case continues.

“If somebody doesn’t survive the lawsuit, then their family member, husband or wife or child, generally just takes over the case and continues the process.”

A Public Health Message

Placitella closes the interview with advice for anyone who may have been exposed.

“If you believe that you were exposed to asbestos, either because you lived with a construction worker or you worked in a factory or on a construction site, you were a sheet metal worker, you worked in a shipyard, you were a laborer, you were a boiler maker, and you have not been diagnosed, you should go see your doctor regardless of whether you’re feeling poorly or not. Because you need a baseline X-ray, and then you should go back on an annual basis.”

He explains why early detection matters.

“If they can find the cancer at a very early stage, they have a chance to save your life. And that’s very, very important. And that didn’t exist, say, 15 years ago. But now it does.”

He shares one case that illustrates the point.

“I had one client who came to us with a very early diagnosis. It was the wife of a boiler maker, and she asked her doctor, ‘Am I at risk?’ And he did a CT scan and found mesothelioma. At that point she was told, ‘Well, I think you really need to get your affairs in order.’ And I said, ‘What kind of mesothelioma do you have and what stage?’ She said, ‘Stage one epithelial mesothelioma.’ I said, ‘You have a chance.’ That person lived for more than five years from diagnosis. Had they done nothing, they probably would have had a different outcome.”