Most mesothelioma cases in Sharon start with one of two employers: Sharon Steel or the Westinghouse plant. If either name is in your family’s work history and mesothelioma is now in its medical history, Pennsylvania law gives you a claim. Michael C. Schafle, Esq. is a Philadelphia trial lawyer, counsel in the Philadelphia asbestos docket (In re: Asbestos Litigation, No. 1986-00001), and he represents mesothelioma patients throughout the state, including Mercer County.
Two employers, one fiber
Sharon Steel’s mills along the Shenango ran the classic high-heat operations of Pennsylvania steelmaking, with asbestos insulating the furnaces, steam lines, and equipment, and asbestos gaskets and protective gear in daily use. Its operations spread along the Shenango Valley, reaching into neighboring Farrell, and workers moved through blast furnace, open hearth, rolling, and finishing departments as seniority and orders dictated. Westinghouse’s Sharon works was electrical manufacturing, a different industry with the same problem: heavy electrical equipment was built with asbestos insulation materials, and the plant’s own boilers and steam systems were lagged with it. Winding, insulating, and testing large electrical apparatus was close-quarters work done amid asbestos-based insulating materials handled daily. Our page on Sharon Steel goes deeper on the mill, and the exposure sites index covers the state’s wider industrial record.
Does being far from Philadelphia hurt your case?
No. A mesothelioma claim is not won by geography; it is won by work history and product identification, and both travel. The defendants are national manufacturers that appear in courtrooms across Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia’s dedicated asbestos program, where Michael Schafle practices and which has operated since 1986. Where your particular case gets filed is a strategic choice made after the facts are documented; venue rules generally allow more than one proper court, and the decision is never made by default. Everything that matters day to day happens by phone and mail: the work history interview, the records releases, the trust paperwork.
The trust fund layer
Many manufacturers whose products filled the Sharon plants later reorganized in bankruptcy and funded settlement trusts. The U.S. Government Accountability Office reported roughly $30 billion set aside in asbestos trusts nationally (GAO-11-819). Trust claims run alongside a lawsuit, drawing on the same documented history, and they matter most in cases like Sharon’s, where some original defendants no longer exist as operating companies. Trust claims are administrative, resolved on documents rather than hearings, and they can move forward even when a patient is too ill for litigation.
When a family files after a death
Mesothelioma is often diagnosed late, and some Mercer County families come to a lawyer only after a funeral. Pennsylvania permits wrongful death and survival actions under 42 Pa. C.S. §§ 8301-8302; the window is generally two years from the date of death. Who may bring the claim and what it covers is explained on our wrongful death page; a living patient’s own claim generally runs two years from diagnosis. Bring whatever the estate has: the death certificate, any pathology report, and the work history as the family remembers it.
What this means for your family
The practical experience is this: phone calls, mailed documents, and a legal team that comes to the evidence instead of summoning the patient. Mercer County families have been sending these cases east for years, and the process is built for it. Records make the trip; your family stays home. Michael Schafle handles mesothelioma cases across Pennsylvania from Philadelphia; his practice includes two multi-million-dollar mesothelioma settlements resolved in 2023, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
If Sharon Steel or Westinghouse paid the paychecks in your house, request a free case review.