-- A McLean County jury awarded $850,000 to a widow whose husband died of mesothelioma.
It was the third McLean County lawsuit in 14 months won by plaintiffs accusing a company of conspiring to hide asbestos dangers. The jury awards in the three lawsuits against Honeywell International Inc. have totaled more than $11 million.
Robert Blessing first experienced symptoms of mesothelioma in June 2005 and died in December 2005, said Lisa Corwin, one of the attorneys who represented Blessing from Walker & Wylder, a Bloomington law firm. He filed the lawsuit, and his wife, Judith, carried on the litigation.
Robert Blessing worked as a builder and inspector for pipe covering at Union Asbestos and Rubber Co., also known as Unarco, from 1953 to 1960 at its Bloomington plant, she said.
Asbestos exposure is the only known cause for mesothelioma, a slowly developing cancer.
A jury also awarded more than $5 million in October 2005 to the wife of Merlan Dukes, who died of mesothelioma and worked for Unarco in the 1950s. And another jury awarded $5.5 million last month to the wife of John Hoogerwerf, who installed insulation on pipes and boilers locally using materials sold by Bendix Aviation Corp., which eventually became part of Honeywell.
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