Mesothelioma | NJ Supreme Court upholds $7 million mesothelioma jury award from ExxonMobil.

The N.J Supreme Court denied ExxonMobil’s appeal of $7 million mesothelioma jury award. In 2008, Bonnie Anderson argued and the jury agreed that she contracted peritoneal mesothelioma by coming in regular contact with her husband’s asbestos-laden clothes.

Malignant peritoneal mesothelioma is an asbestos-related cancer that invades the lining of the stomach and abdomen. Second most after pleural mesothelioma, peritoneal mesothelioma accounts for less than 20% of all mesothelioma cases. As with other mesothelioma types, peritoneal mesothelioma has a long latency period of 20 to 30 years after the asbestos exposure.

Bonnie Anderson was diagnosed with malignant peritoneal mesothelioma in 2001. Anderson’s exposure to asbestos came from washing her husband’s clothes. Her husband worked the first six years at the Exxon refinery removing insulation to fix pumps and filters and he regularly came home with his clothes covered in insulation dust – a dust she always shook out before tossing his clothes in the washing machine.

Since Anderson’s diagnosis of mesothelioma, she has undergone two surgeries and multiple rounds of chemotherapy involving five different types of drugs. After the NJ Supreme Court declined to take up Exxon’s appeal allowing the $7million jury verdict to stand, Bonnie Anderson, the 62-year-old New Jersey resident, said

“It’s bittersweet because I’m going back into chemotherapy.”

“I wish I could tell you it was a glorious day to learn this but you take life in perspective.”

“I’d rather not be sick.”

Source: See Star-Ledger