Industrial Conshohocken was defined by two employers on the Schuylkill: Alan Wood Steel and the Lee Tire and Rubber operations. Between them they exposed thousands of Montgomery County workers to asbestos over the decades, and mesothelioma diagnoses connected to that work still qualify for compensation today. Michael C. Schafle, Esq., counsel on the Philadelphia asbestos docket about 15 miles away, evaluates these claims at no charge.
Asbestos at Alan Wood Steel
Alan Wood’s furnaces, rolling operations, and steam infrastructure relied on the same asbestos-bearing insulation, gaskets, and refractory materials found in steel plants across Pennsylvania. The exposure fell hardest on maintenance trades, the pipefitters, masons, millwrights, and laborers who cut, removed, and replaced those materials as part of the daily work. The plant drew labor from the whole industrial Schuylkill corridor, Norristown included, so Alan Wood claims come from families well beyond the borough line. A fuller account of the plant is on our Alan Wood Steel exposure page, within the Pennsylvania exposure sites index.
Rubber work had its own asbestos problem
Tire and rubber manufacturing used steam at scale, and steam meant insulated lines, presses, and boilers. Curing equipment ran hot behind asbestos-containing insulation, and talc and other process materials of that era brought their own contamination concerns. Lee Tire workers, particularly those in maintenance and around the powerhouse, describe exposure patterns familiar from any heavy plant of the period. A rubber-plant work history deserves the same careful product identification as a steel one. Long service was common at both employers, and long service usually means long exposure, which strengthens the eventual claim.
The legal path for Montgomery County families
Claims proceed against the manufacturers of the asbestos products used in these plants, not against the memory of the employers themselves. Many manufacturers now exist only as bankruptcy trusts, funded for victims with roughly $30 billion in total according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO-11-819). Suit and trust claims usually run in parallel. Where a suit is filed gets settled by the facts of each case; being in Montgomery County does not lock a claim into any single courthouse, and the choice is made with the client after the exposure record is built.
Two years: the number that governs everything
Pennsylvania’s general rule gives a patient two years from discovery of the disease to file (42 Pa. C.S. § 5524), and gives a family generally two years from a death for wrongful death and survival claims (42 Pa. C.S. §§ 8301-8302). Since the National Cancer Institute reports mesothelioma surfacing 20 to 50 years after exposure (NCI asbestos fact sheet), the discovery rule is what keeps these decades-delayed cases alive. It rewards prompt action after diagnosis all the same.
A short drive, or no drive at all
Conshohocken is one of the closest communities to Michael Schafle’s Philadelphia office, and clients who want to sit across a table from their lawyer can. Those in treatment often prefer the opposite, and the practice is set up for it: records gathered by the firm, conferences by phone or video, depositions brought to the client. He is counsel in Philadelphia’s dedicated asbestos court program (In re: Asbestos Litigation, No. 1986-00001), representing families throughout the state, as the Pennsylvania city index shows.
Turning history into a claim
Between Alan Wood and Lee Tire, Conshohocken’s exposure record is well trodden; prior litigation has already identified many of the products and suppliers involved. Your family’s task is smaller than it feels: name the employer, the trade, and the years, and let the documented history do its work.
Michael Schafle also keeps a site just for Conshohocken families, mesotheliomalawyerconshohockenpa.com, with the local exposure history, the deadlines that apply, and the same free case review.
The free case review is how that conversation starts.