✍ Scribed by J. D. Britton
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
A 48-year-old female presented for assessment of shortness of breath of 4 years' duration. The evaluation revealed bilateral pleural and diaphragmatic calcifications and airway obstruction but no evidence of parenchymal pulmonary disease. She had significant household asbestos exposure as a child, primarily in the washing of her father's work clothing.
Her father was Clarence Borel, who died of mesothelioma in 1970. Mr. Borel was an industrial insulator for 33 years along the Gulf Coast of Texas. The landmark case of asbestos litigation, Borel vs. Fiberboard Paper Products Corporation Et Al., was tried successfully in 1971 [Brodeur, 19851. This case subsequently opened an unprecedented deluge of "toxic tort" litigation upon the American jurisprudence system. Since Borel vs. Fiberboard, more than 25,000 asbestos-related lawsuits have been filed against asbestos manufacturers. Many were based on the precedent of ''failure to warn," established in the Bore1 case.
The present case is thus historically important, in that a daughter of Clarence Borel has developed asbestos-related disease. Observation continues.
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