A month-long asbestos trial in Jefferson County, Texas ended yesterday with a verdict in favor of defendant DuPont Corporation, who the jury said was not responsible for the death of William Whisnant, who died of malignant pleural mesothelioma in 1999.

According to an article in the Southeast Texas Record, the trial focused on the plaintiff, a former B.F. Shaw pipe fitter who worked at DuPont in 1966 as an independent contractor. His family claims he was exposed to enough asbestos fibers during his time with DuPont to cause him to develop mesothelioma, an aggressive and fatal form of lung cancer for which the only known cause is asbestos exposure.

Whisnant’s family was part of a class action suit which claimed that DuPont “negligently and maliciously exposed workers to asbestos” even though the company knew asbestos dust and fibers created health hazards.

“Even though Whisnant was an independent contractor, jurors ruled that DuPont was still at least partially responsible for his safety, but decided that DuPont did not negligently contribute to his cancer by purposely exposing him to harmful asbestos,” the article states. Therefore, the company was not ordered to pay any compensation.

DuPont argued that they took steps to protect their employees from asbestos long before OSHA implemented asbestos guidelines in 1972. However, the plaintiff’s attorneys countered with an argument which stated that DuPont “knew about the dangers of asbestos as early as 1940, but chose to conceal their findings and focus on a defense to protect the company from lawsuits rather than implement policies that would save the lives of its workers.”

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