You did everything right – you worked hard, provided for your family, and took pride in your career. Whether working in construction sites, industrial plants, shipyards, or countless other occupations, asbestos exposure wasn’t something on your mind. Decades later, you find yourself suffering from debilitating diseases like mesothelioma or lung cancer. What you may not realize is your health condition could be directly linked to those work conditions.
Your life has been disrupted and thrown into crisis through no fault of your own. Staring down the barrel of diminished health and growing medical costs, you need a fierce legal advocate to make things right. That’s where our Monticello asbestos and mesothelioma attorneys at Onward Injury Law can be your voice for justice.
Asbestos Exposure and Related Diseases
For much of the 20th century, asbestos – a naturally occurring mineral – was widely used in construction materials, automotive parts, shipbuilding, and countless manufacturing industries. Its heat-resistant and insulating properties made it extremely versatile and popular.
However, we’ve since learned that inhaling asbestos fibers can lead to catastrophic health consequences years or even decades later:
- Mesothelioma: This rare, aggressive cancer develops in the protective lining covering the lungs, abdomen, or heart. Mesothelioma has been directly linked to asbestos exposure with no other known causes.
- Lung Cancer: While lung cancer has other risk factors like smoking, asbestos fiber inhalation is also a leading cause. Up to 20% of lung cancer cases in the U.S. are attributed to occupational asbestos exposures.
- Asbestosis: A chronic, progressive fibrosis scarring of lung tissue resulting from heavy, prolonged asbestos exposure. While not cancerous, it severely impacts breathing.
Tragically, not only workers but their families were put at risk. Asbestos fibers trapped on clothing, hair, and personal items could lead to secondary exposure at home – causing spouses and children to develop mesothelioma, lung cancer, or asbestosis years later.
Damages to Rightfully Recover in an Asbestos Case
When negligent companies cause life-altering asbestos exposures resulting in horrific diseases, they must be held fully accountable. Our asbestos attorneys fight to recover both economic and non-economic damages, including:
- Medical Costs: All expenses to diagnose, treat, and manage your asbestos-related illness(es).
- Lost Wages: Income unable to be earned due to your condition, treatments and recoveries.
- Permanent Disability: Value of lost future earnings capacity and diminished quality of life.
- Pain and Suffering: Physical pain, emotional distress, and anguish endured.
- Wrongful Death: Medical costs, funeral expenses, loss of companionship, future earnings, and more.
- Punitive Damages: Additional penalties for egregiously reckless corporate misconduct.
Our mission is to ensure every penny of rightful compensation is aggressively pursued and recovered for clients devastated by asbestos exposures. No amount can undo the harm, but it provides critical financial recovery.
Why You Need an Experienced Asbestos/Mesothelioma Attorney
If you or a loved one has been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease stemming from workplace exposures decades ago, you have legal rights. However, successfully pursuing asbestos injury claims requires representation from seasoned attorneys.
The realities you face are daunting: pinpointing the sources of exposure from 30-40 years prior, proving your illness directly stems from that asbestos, and battling corporate giants aggressively shielding themselves from liability through hardball legal tactics.
Attempting to pursue a mesothelioma cancer case or asbestosis lawsuit alone can be risky for several reasons:
- Strict statute of limitation time limits in Illinois mean you must take legal action rapidly
- Asbestos companies have armies of defense lawyers aiming to discredit your claims
- Calculating complete damages from medical costs, lost wages, pain/suffering, and disability is complex
- Evidence from old work sites, products you handled, and company records must be meticulously gathered
You face an extreme disadvantage without guidance from attorneys experienced in asbestos litigation. Our asbestos injury team levels that playing field by deploying the resources and strategies honed from decades of successful cases against these companies and manufacturers.
How Our Monticello Asbestos Lawyers Investigate Your Case
When you partner with our legal team, we do the heavy lifting to build your case. When you partner with our legal team, we start with a comprehensive, in-depth interview. We’ll carefully document every job site you worked, the product you handled, and the potential source of asbestos exposure you encountered over your career. This forms the critical foundation of your case.
From there, we’ll consult medical experts and your diagnosing healthcare providers to establish definitive causation – that your mesothelioma, lung cancer, or other asbestos disease stems from those identified exposures. This rules out other potential causes.
Our investigators will then comb through employment records, historical job site documentation, company memos, and asbestos bankruptcy trusts to systematically unearth even more evidence substantiating your claims.
In the vast majority of these cases, you do not have to go to court. However, by taking this exhaustive approach, we identify all potentially liable manufacturers, distributors, and employers who caused or contributed to your asbestos exposures. This allows us to maximize the sources of compensation available.
Practice Areas for Asbestos Injury Claims
Whether your asbestos injuries manifested from years of workplace exposures or from secondary sources, our lawyers represent clients in a wide range of cases seeking justice and accountability:
Mesothelioma Cancer Lawsuits
This rare, aggressive form of cancer caused by inhaling microscopic asbestos fibers has a devastating impact on those diagnosed and their loved ones. Untreatable once it spreads, malignant mesothelioma has a very poor prognosis.
Through mesothelioma lawsuits, our attorneys hold every culpable company responsible – from the manufacturers who produced the asbestos products to the distributors and employers who oversaw the work sites causing exposures. We fight for every available cent of compensation for past/future medical bills, lost earnings, disability accommodations, pain/suffering, and other damages.
Asbestosis and Lung Cancer Litigation
Long periods of workplace exposure to asbestos dust over time lead to scarring and thickening in the lungs, known as asbestosis. While not cancerous, this progressive disease severely restricts breathing capacity and quality of life.
We also represent clients pursuing compensation for lung cancers definitively linked to occupational asbestos inhalation. These aggressive claims allow recovery of damages for treating the cancer, remission periods, and loss of life expectancy.
No matter the specific illness, our focus is maximizing financial recovery for you and your family during these unimaginable hardships. All while holding every negligent company that caused your exposure fully accountable.
Secondhand Asbestos Exposure Claims
Spouses, children, and household members can develop mesothelioma, lung cancer, and other illnesses simply from secondhand exposure.
This occurred when asbestos fibers were carried home on the clothing, hair, shoes, and equipment of workers at job sites using carcinogenic materials. For companies that sold asbestos-containing products or operated facilities exposing employees, their failure to warn about these secondary risks was unconscionable.
Our team pursues these secondary exposure cases, recovering justifiable compensation for those whose lives were destroyed through no direct fault of theirs.
Take the First Step Toward Justice and Compensation
Filing asbestos injury claims is a time-sensitive endeavor governed by strict statutes of limitation timeframes depending on your diagnosis. That’s why contacting our Monticello asbestos lawyers for a free, no-obligation consultation should be an urgent priority.
If you do wish to move ahead, you’ll pay no upfront costs for our services. Our contingency-fee model means your asbestos legal representation comes at no risk unless we secure compensation on your behalf.
Your path to holding companies accountable for their asbestos misconduct starts by taking quick action. Contact us today to schedule your free consultation and get the legal process started. You’ve already endured hardships through circumstances wildly outside your control – allow our determined attorneys to fight for the justice and recovery you deserve.