Easton sits where the Lehigh meets the Delaware, at the eastern end of a valley whose cement plants, steel works, and machine shops employed generations, and exposed many of them to asbestos. Michael C. Schafle, Esq. brings mesothelioma claims for Northampton County families as part of a Pennsylvania-wide practice run from Philadelphia. A diagnosis in Easton deserves a careful look at where the work years were spent.
The cement belt at Easton’s door
The Lehigh Valley’s cement industry, concentrated in the Nazareth and Northampton corridor just west of the city, ran kilns and grinding operations around the clock for a century. High-temperature equipment of that vintage was insulated with asbestos, and kiln maintenance, refractory work, and mechanical repair put tradesmen directly into the material. Cement plant careers are a recurring thread in Northampton County mesothelioma cases, and workers often supplemented them with construction and plant-repair jobs that carried the same exposures.
Bethlehem Steel, a few miles up the valley
The other giant in local work histories is Bethlehem Steel, whose home plant employed tens of thousands within commuting distance of Easton. Blast furnaces, coke works, and forge shops all depended on asbestos insulation in their era. Across the river, the Ingersoll-Rand works in Phillipsburg added another major machine-building employer to the local mix. Easton work histories regularly braid these employers together, and each one can contribute defendants to a claim. The larger inventory is on our Pennsylvania asbestos exposure sites guide.
How Pennsylvania law treats these cases
Pennsylvania gives mesothelioma patients a two-year window from diagnosis to file suit, under 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524, and applies its Fair Share Act, 42 Pa. C.S. § 7102, to divide responsibility among the companies found liable. Families who have lost someone have their own two-year period. The state-specific rules, including how they interact with asbestos trust claims, are collected on our Pennsylvania asbestos laws page. New Jersey work histories are not a problem, incidentally: Mr. Schafle is admitted in both Pennsylvania and New Jersey, which matters in a border city like this one.
What the first month of a claim looks like
Families are often surprised by how little is asked of them. In the first weeks, the firm secures the diagnosis records, files the paperwork that stops the clock, and begins pulling Social Security earnings statements and union records to lock down the work history. Product identification follows, matching plants and years to the insulation and equipment litigated in thousands of prior cases. You approve decisions; you do not perform tasks. Coworkers who remember the kilns or the furnaces are located and interviewed by the firm, wherever they have retired to. The court where the case proceeds is chosen on the facts, case by case, not by habit, and the fee comes from a recovery rather than from the family during the case.
Why a Philadelphia lawyer for an Easton case
Because the practice is built for it. Mr. Schafle co-founded Green & Schafle, LLC, is counsel on Philadelphia’s dedicated asbestos docket, In re: Asbestos Litigation, No. 1986-00001, and resolved two multi-million-dollar mesothelioma settlements in 2023. Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. The firm represents families throughout the state, listed on our Pennsylvania mesothelioma lawyer hub, and the seventy miles between Easton and the office change nothing about how the case is staffed or fought.
What this means for your family
If cement, steel, or machine-shop years show up anywhere in the family work history, a mesothelioma diagnosis is very likely connected to them, and Pennsylvania law provides a route to compensation with a firm deadline attached.
Open the conversation with a free case review; it is free, and it settles the question of whether you have a case.