Union Carbide Breaches Agreement in Asbestos Case

March 17, 2006 - A woman from South Charleston, West Virginia, whose husband died of asbestos-related disease in 1997, claims that Union Carbide has backed out of a monetary settlement to which the two parties agreed in 2004.

Rather than the $170,000 which was agreed upon at an April 2004 meeting of the two parties, Union Carbide has informed Mrs. Anna Keys that she will be receiving only $5,000.  The defendants informed her in a letter that her husband's benefits would only have been paid until he was 65. Carl Keys died at age 69 so the company has determined that his wife is not eligible for the full benefit.

Lawyers for Union Carbide called this an "Age 65 application," where, they stated, "benefits will be paid until the decedent reached age 65 because the application of the policy is currently pending before the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. As it stands, Brickstreet (Insurance) would only pay the claimant-widow until the decedent's benefits would have been terminated by W. Va. Code," point out the defendants.

Carl Keys worked at the company from 1951 to 1982, and in 1999, 2 years after his death, Mrs. Keys submitted three reports from doctors stating that her husband had asbestosis and that his death was certainly due to occupational exposure to asbestos on an almost-daily basis. 

The defendants approached Mrs. Keys in 2004 with the offer of the $170,000 settlement.  She expected to be receiving the settlement shortly.  In January 2006, however, she received a note stating that she’d be receiving the smaller settlement instead.  The case is scheduled to go before a judge in Charleston this spring.