Lawsuit against Gerogia-Pacific makes third turn
An asbestos-related wrongful-death lawsuit makes its third turn through the Dallas County courts this year. The suit that blames Atlanta-based building materials manufacturer Georgia-Pacific for the 2003 death of a 41-year-old Dallas man, has already been heard twice in Dallas County.The much-criticized Judge Sally Montgomery has been removed from the case. In late December, the suit was moved into a new court and ordered for retrial.
Two previous verdicts awarded the family of the deceased Timothy Bostic $9.3 million and $13.6 million in separate trials. However, Georgia-Pacific's successful motion for retrial and recusal means the Bostics will have to try their case yet again, this time in County Court At Law No. 1, under newly elected Democrat Judge D'Metria Benson.
"We are pleased that a new judge will now be handling the case," Georgia-Pacific chief counsel John Childs said in a company press release.
Timothy Bostic died of mesothelioma, an asbestos-related cancer which is caused almost exclusively by exposure to asbestos. His family claims that he developed the disease as a result of his working on construction sites as a child with his father in the 1970’s. Mesothelioma has an extremely long incubation period. It can be up to 50 years. Construction work is one of the occupations most heavily linked with exposure to asbestos and the development of mesothelioma.
In 2005, the first verdict was overturned for a procedural error. The second verdict, reached in June 2006, was thrown out and ordered retried after Montgomery was ruled to have acted improperly when a key witness collapsed at the courthouse and later died.
