More Asbestos Suits Filed against Illinois Central

September 18, 2006 - Another 24 individuals in Memphis, TN have filed lawsuits against Illinois Central Railroad, alleging that the company failed to protect them from exposure to asbestos even though they knew the material was both present and dangerous.

According to an account in the Memphis Daily News, these 24 new cases come on top of an additional 50 that were filed in Shelby County Circuit Court just five months ago.  Almost all the men filing suit are retired and once worked at various jobs in the rail yards, of which Illinois Central had two in South Memphis.  The railroad is now owned by Canadian National Railway.

"We're working on finding out what did the railroad know, when did they know it, what did they go through to get things remediated, where did that happen, did they get it all - that kind of thing," said attorney Christopher Gilreath of Gilreath and Associates.

"We're still in the discovery phase, and we'll be there for a while," added Gilreath. "We don't have any trial dates yet, and the state of the first batch of cases is that Illinois Central's counsel and I have been working pretty well together on sharing some initial discovery information."

Currently, notes the article, the information gathered is being broken down for each individual claimant.  Because exposure and injury is not the same for everyone, the 24 individual lawsuits aren’t lumped into one class action suit.

But both the attorneys and plaintiffs are convinced that the railroad knew what was happening and allowed the men to continue inhaling fibers, eventually causing them to develop asbestos-related diseases like asbestosis and mesothelioma.

"The reason that we pursue these cases is because we feel like we've got evidence that shows the railroad company had knowledge that asbestos was harmful - and they chose to do nothing about it," Gilreath told the Memphis Daily News.