Veterans Asbestos Exposure Claims

• Mesothelioma Lawyer in Essington
• Mesothelioma Lawsuit Filing
• What a Mesothelioma Case Is Worth
• Veterans Asbestos Exposure Claims

Essington sits directly across the Delaware from League Island, and the traffic between the two shores ran both ways for fifty years. Men who did their service in engine and fire rooms came home to Tinicum and took jobs a mile from the water — at the Westinghouse turbine works, in the airport hangars, or up the river at the Chester yards — doing recognisably the same work in recognisably the same materials. A veteran from this township frequently has two exposure records rather than one, and only the first of them is a VA matter.

A large share of the people diagnosed with mesothelioma in this country served in the military, and the reason is not mysterious. Asbestos was the standard insulation aboard ships and in boiler and engine rooms from the 1940s through the 1980s, and it was used just as freely in shore stations, depots, motor pools, and base housing. Sailors slept a few feet from lagged steam lines. Machinist's mates and boiler techs worked inside spaces where the insulation was cut, fitted, and torn out on a schedule. Veterans from Essington who served in those ratings, or who did the same work as civilians afterward at the Westinghouse turbine works at Lester, the airport hangars, and the Chester and Eddystone plants up the river, often have exposure on both sides of their working life.

The most common misunderstanding we hear is that filing a VA claim means giving up a civil claim, or that a civil claim means suing the Navy. Neither is right. A VA disability claim is a benefits claim against the government based on service connection. A civil asbestos claim is brought against the manufacturers and suppliers that made the insulation, gaskets, packing, and block that the service bought and installed — private companies, many of which knew what asbestos did long before they stopped selling it. The two run on separate tracks, and it is routine to pursue both at once.

For a service-connected claim, the VA generally wants a diagnosis, evidence of in-service exposure, and a medical link between the two. Mesothelioma has essentially one known cause, which simplifies the medical question considerably compared with most VA claims. The evidence problem is usually the service record: a DD-214, a rating and ship assignment, and the dates. If the records are thin or burned, that is a solvable problem more often than people expect — deck logs, muster rolls, unit histories, and a shipmate who served in the same space can rebuild the picture.

If the veteran has already died, the family is not out of options. A surviving spouse may qualify for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, and the civil claim generally survives as a wrongful-death and survival action brought by the estate. Families in Essington, Lester, Tinicum, Prospect Park, Norwood, Ridley Park, Eddystone, and Folcroft sometimes wait years before asking, on the assumption that the moment passed. It is worth asking rather than assuming.

We will come to you. Veterans in treatment, and families caring for one, should not have to drive across Delaware County for a first conversation. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

That is worth untangling early, because the two tracks run on different clocks and different evidence. The service side turns on a DD-214, a rating, and a ship or shore station; the civilian side turns on plant records, union books, and Social Security earnings. Neither forecloses the other, and families here often find that the better documentation is on the side nobody thought to look at.

Veterans Asbestos Exposure Claims — fees and costs in Essington

No fee unless there is a recovery. Any fee is a percentage agreed in writing before representation begins.

Veterans Asbestos Exposure Claims — questions, answered