Braddock is still a steel town, and that fact sits at the center of most mesothelioma cases that come out of it. Michael C. Schafle, Esq. is a Philadelphia trial lawyer who represents mesothelioma patients and their survivors throughout Pennsylvania, including workers and families in the Braddock area.
Asbestos exposure at U.S. Steel’s Edgar Thomson Works in Braddock
The U.S. Steel Edgar Thomson Works has operated on the Monongahela since the 1870s, and, unlike nearly every other mill in the valley, it is still running. For most of the twentieth century, steelmaking depended on controlling extreme heat, and controlling heat meant asbestos: insulation on furnaces and ladles, block and cement around steam lines, protective gloves and blankets in the hands of the workers themselves. Maintenance crews who tore out and replaced that insulation often took the heaviest exposure of anyone in the plant.
The jobs that appear again and again in Mon Valley asbestos cases include:
- Millwrights and maintenance mechanics
- Bricklayers and furnace-reline laborers
- Pipefitters, boilermakers, and welders
- General laborers assigned wherever the work was
Braddock is one entry on a long list. Our guide to Pennsylvania asbestos exposure sites covers the other Mon Valley works and the plants beyond them.
Mesothelioma latency period: why diagnosis, not exposure, starts your claim
Mesothelioma develops slowly. The National Cancer Institute reports that the disease typically appears 20 to 50 years after asbestos exposure (NCI asbestos fact sheet). A millwright who left Edgar Thomson in 1985 can be diagnosed this year, and the law treats the diagnosis, not the long-ago exposure, as the event that starts a claim.
Pennsylvania’s deadline to file a mesothelioma lawsuit
Pennsylvania sets a filing deadline for mesothelioma lawsuits that runs from the date of diagnosis, and survivors bringing a claim after a death face their own separate deadline. How the discovery rule applies, and what happens when a patient dies during a pending case, is explained on our Pennsylvania statute of limitations page. The practical point is short: the clock started at diagnosis, and waiting narrows your options.
Do you need a lawyer in Braddock itself?
You need a lawyer who knows Pennsylvania asbestos litigation. Michael Schafle, who practices from Philadelphia, is counsel on the Philadelphia asbestos docket and resolved two multi-million-dollar mesothelioma settlements. (Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.) Where a Braddock case is filed, whether in Allegheny County, Philadelphia, or another court, it gets decided after the work history is mapped, based on where the claim stands strongest. He represents clients in mill towns across the state; the full list is on our Pennsylvania mesothelioma lawyer hub.
The evidence does not fall on you either. Employment records, union files, Social Security earnings statements, and plant documents are requested and assembled by the legal team. Nobody in your family has to drive anywhere or dig through boxes in the attic.
Can I file a mesothelioma claim in Braddock?
If the diagnosis is mesothelioma and there is Edgar Thomson time anywhere in the work history, yours, a parent’s, or a spouse’s, the case deserves a serious look. Claims against asbestos product manufacturers and claims against asbestos bankruptcy trusts can both be available; they can proceed at the same time, and having them evaluated costs nothing. Even household members who never set foot in the mill may have a claim if they handled a worker’s dusty clothes for years.
Tell us your work history during a free case review, and we will tell you plainly whether there is a case.