An Iranian-American engineer has been awarded more than $14 million by a Los Angeles jury in a case against a construction contractor that was deemed responsible for causing his cancer – mesothelioma - an illness for which the only known cause is exposure to toxic asbestos.

According to a press release by the plaintiff’s attorney, Amanollah Shahabi worked at oil refineries for more than 40 years, including about 30 years at oil complexes in Iran. Shahabi was trained as an engineer and, according to the release, his area of expertise was in pre-commissioning and commissioning major oil refineries for the state-run National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

 Shahabi relocated to the United States in the 1980s and worked as a consultant in the industry while studying to obtain his American citizenship. He later worked for the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo, California.

According to the suit, his work “exposed him daily over a period of nearly four decades to multitudes of asbestos-coated- and asbestos-containing parts.” Shahabi was diagnosed with malignant pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive form of pulmonary cancer, in June 2007.

The Los Angeles jury decided that Fluor Corporation and several Fluor-affiliated entities were “negligent in their engineering procurement and construction of several oil refineries which contained various asbestos products and components.” Manufacturers John Crane Company and Fisher Company were not held liable.

“This case is remarkable on several counts,” said Shahabi’s attorney. “It may well be the first-known asbestos exposure liability case where the construction contractor was held responsible for the effects of defective products that it installed but did not manufacture. It is also important to recognize that the jury held an American company responsible for negligence that caused injury to foreign nationals on foreign soil,” he explained.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 8:51 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.