BUFFALO, NEW YORK – The law firm of Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford, LLC announces that it has obtained over $3 million dollars in a settlement award on behalf of a local union boilermaker for injuries resulting from exposure to asbestos on the job. Earl W. Tredinnick, III, 61, of Elma, New York, who worked as a Local 7 Union Boilermaker between 1967 and 2002 developed mesothelioma in the fall of 2008, and brought suit against various companies responsible for a variety of asbestos-containing products. Due to the confidential nature of this settlement, the Tredinnicks are not at liberty to disclose the names of the settling parties or the amounts contributed by each of these companies to the award.
Retired Supreme Court Justice John P. Lane, serving as a judicial hearing officer, presided over this case.
Mr. Tredinnick is married with three children and six grand-children. Mr. Tredinnick is a third generation boilermaker who worked at large industrial sites throughout the area, including Niagara Mohawk’s Huntley and Dunkirk steam stations, Ashland Oil, Hooker Chemical, Bethlehem Steel and DuPont in Niagara Falls.
The case settled two days after a jury was selected and just before Mr. Tredinnick’s lawyer, Michael A. Ponterio of the law firm Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford, LLC, was due to make his opening statement. Mr. Tredinnick claims that his mesothelioma was caused by exposure to equipment, including pipes, valves and boilers covered with exterior insulation. Mr. Tredinnick was present and participated in numerous shut-downs during which asbestos-containing insulation materials were removed and replaced. This procedure gives rise to a great deal of airborne asbestos contamination.
As individuals who were raised and educated in Western New York and who live and work in the Buffalo area, the lawyers at Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford were privileged to represent a fellow Western New Yorker wrongfully injured by the negligent conduct of various companies involved in the asbestos industry.
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