PALM BEACH, Florida – Palm Beach County has agreed to accept a settlement of about 70 cents on the dollar in a case involving incomplete removal of asbestos from the Old Courthouse almost 15 years ago.
In March 1994, Palm Beach County hired a contractor to remove asbestos from the Old Courthouse prior to restoring the building in 1996. The County later discovered that not all of the asbestos had been identified and removed from the building. It cost nearly $250,000 for the county to remedy the situation and remove the remaining asbestos from the building.
The county commissioners brought suit against the asbestos removal firm and a consultant. The suit alleges that Entek and the contractor hired by them, Simpson and Associates, failed to identify and remove all of the asbestos from the courthouse. Specifically, the suit alleged that Entek failed to “identify and designate” all of the asbestos to be removed, and that the consultant did not “monitor the work efforts of the contractor”, Simpson and Associates.
The amount asked for in the suit was $245,167, the amount paid by the county to finish the removal work.
The county agreed to accept the offer of 70 percent because of the reasonableness of the amount and because of challenges to the suit based on the statute of limitations. County commissioners were concerned about the uncertainty of litigation.
Asbestos removal is a matter for litigations more and more frequently because of the damaging effects of asbestos exposure. Three quarters of a million public and commercial buildings in the United States were constructed with asbestos containing materials in the years following World War II. Many of these buildings are facing renovation, repair or demolition as they age.
As time and wear take their toll, the buildings become dilapidated, and the asbestos containing materials become worn or damaged, increasing the possibility of asbestos fibers being released into the air and exposing the public and those who work in the buildings to asbestos fibers. Asbestos exposure has been shown to cause many serious illnesses, particularly with regular and prolonged exposure. Those conditions include lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, mesothelioma and asbestosis.
Because of the dangers of asbestos exposure, any work that has the potential to disturb asbestos containing materials must be done by licensed and trained professionals, using approved methods to contain the asbestos and prevent the fibers from becoming airborne.
County commissions and city councils across the country are dealing with asbestos abatement issues in public buildings, government buildings, commercial buildings and public schools. Asbestos removal and abatement can be extremely costly, and only parts of the cost can generally be recovered from insurance.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 29th, 2008 at 2:41 pm and is filed under Asbestos Abatement, Asbestos Litigation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. Responses are currently closed, but you trackback from your own site.