Question

Asbestos Removal

Analyze a fact pattern for landholder premises liability

This analysis exercise explores issues related to landholder premises liability.

Step 1 Read the fact pattern.
Jane's parents got work at Nix-Asbestos, an asbestos removal firm. The company made Jane's parents wear protective clothing at every job site. For their first year at Nix-Asbestos, her parents helped to remove asbestos insulation at an old private school, which was being converted into high-priced condominiums. Jane helped her parents around the house, including doing the clothes washing. She never went to visit her parents while they worked on the asbestos removal from the old private school. Within a few months after the completion of that job, Jane contracted mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer that arises primarily from exposure to asbestos. Her parents brought suit against the owners of the old private school, on a theory of premises liability.

Step 2 Write a paper.
Draft a paper that analyzes the issues of landholder premises liability as they apply to the fact pattern and addresses these points with supporting rationale:

What do the parents need to show in order to establish the liability of the owners of the old private school?

What arguments will the owners of the old private school raise against the suit?

How will the court likely rule on such requests?

Why would the court rule as it would on those arguments?

Answer 1

The parents would need to show the procedures and guidelines put in place for removal of the asbestos. They would also need to detail exactly the procedure that is said to have happened after they are finished working. We can see that the daughter contracted the Asbestos from fibers on the parents clothes being that she was the primary person washing the clothes after. Other causes could be if they did not shut off the heat and ventilation. The clothes should of been packed up and sealed in a plastic after the job so exposure to a third party would and should not happen. The would need to prove that the conditions set to do the job was unsafe and or defective.

The owners of the old private school could take the negligence approach as to why they took contaminated materials home and allowed their child to handle the items. They also would claim this to be a work hazard and that although it came from working on the property it was contracted off premises by a non contracted person. I believe an “assumption of the risk” angle can also be taken. I believe that the court will likely rule in favor of the defendant.mainly because this is contingent of the private schools environment changing after the contract to was set forward.

Being that the plaintiff assumed the risk with doing a Job and was contracted, they are held to a standard that would and should protect them from carrying asbestos. Being that it is not one of the workers but their daughter it can be seen that the source would be from what ever the parents had brought home. In Premises liability its concept typically comes into play in personal injury cases where the injury was caused by some type of unsafe or defective condition on someone's property. The defective condition would be after the job was done, or in the uniform both of which would not fall on the responsibility of the private school.