RICHLAND CO. – The Bridgeport, Illinois, oil patch is once again under the gun, this time in Richland County and in civil court, regarding a serious allegation about the presence of asbestos in the field and its impact on people peripheral to it.
A former Olney resident, Jessica Blackford-Cleeton, 33, now of Springfield, and her husband Brandon Cleeton, have sued a number of entities in Richland County Circuit Court for an incident that occurred in Bridgeport, but which was brought to Blackford-Cleeton in Olney: Asbestos particles on her dad’s clothing, which were there because he worked in the neighboring county’s oil patch.
Blackford-Cleeton is blaming a plethora of entities for this situation: AK Steel Corporation, Caterpillar Inc., Gardner Denver Inc., Goulds Pumps, Inc., Honeywell International Inc., Ingersoll-Rand Co., John Crane Inc., Lufkin Industries Inc., Marathon Oil Company, Marathon Oil Corporation, Marathon Petroleum Co. LP, Pneumo Abex LLC, Standco Industries Inc., and Unites States Steel Corporation.
The suit was filed December 18 and not all subpoenas have been served yet. However, Blackford-Cleeton has issued a jury trial demand on all counts.
She alleges that from the time she was born in 1982 until the beginning of 1996, her father, Randy Blackford, worked at Marathon Oil’s Bridgeport Oil Field, where he used and was around materials and products that contained asbestos. Marathon Oil, she alleges, did not tell Blackford that he was working with asbestos or explain how dangerous it was.
“The makers and sellers of the asbestos materials and products did not provide warnings that would reach end users like Mr. Blackford,” the suit alleges. “Marathon Oil did not provide Mr. Blackford with a uniform or a place to change clothes and shower before leaving work. Consequently, the asbestos to which Mr. Blackford was exposed was unknowingly carried home on his clothes, his person and in his truck where Jessica was persistently exposed to it from birth until she was fourteen years old. Now, at age thirty-three, Jessica has contracted malignant mesothelioma, a usually fatal cancer caused by asbestos. She and her husband, Brandon Cleeton, bring this action against Marathon Oil and the suppliers of the asbestos materials and products to recover compensation for the medical bills, other expenses, lost wages and inability to have children caused by Jessica’s cancer, for the physical pain she constantly suffers, and for the emotional distress of facing the probability of death in her early thirties.”
The suit alleges that the list of entities specified at the outset, most of them not local, “manufactured, sold, distributed, marketed, specified, designed, promoted, licensed, installed, removed and/or otherwise used asbestos and asbestos-containing materials and products that were present at the Bridgeport Oil Field” at the times mentioned. The asbestos-containing materials, the suit claims, included transite pipe, asbestos-cement pipe, packing, gaskets, brakes, clutches, friction materials and transite board.
As such (and in much legalese), the suit claims that they are responsible for the bringing in of asbestos on Randy Blackford’s “person, clothing and personal property” to the family household shared with his daughter Jessica, including their home at 605 E. Lafayette in Olney.
“Because asbestos and asbestos fibers are respirable, durable and transportable, once they were carried into and present in the Blackford’s home, vehicles and living spaces, said asbestos and asbestos fibers did not dissolve, evaporate or otherwise disappear,” the suit alleges. “Said asbestos and asbestos fibers persisted and constantly became re-airborne and respirable when disturbed by movement, activities, air currents and other motion.”
This, the suit says, is how the complainant Blackford-Cleeton “was repeatedly and persistently exposed to, inhaled, ingested and otherwise absorbed the asbestos and asbestos fibers, which were carried from the work of her father into their shared household…in addition to exposure from…vehicles and living spaces contaminated with asbestos,” this by not only sharing the home, but laundering the father’s work clothes, including shaking them out, proximity to vacuuming, dusting and household cleaning that disturbed but did not remove asbestos and asbestos fivers from the home, as well as riding in the vehicle that her father drove to and from work and which, for periods of time, was used for his on-the-job transportation around the Bridgeport Oil Field.
The suit is careful to point out that her exposure to the materials, products, equipment, activities and conditions attributable to the various defendants including marathon occurred from her birth in July 1982 until he transferred to Marathon’s Robinson refinery on January 1, 1996.
It also states that she is unaware that she engaged in any employment herself that involved exposure to asbestos.
It wraps everything by stating that the exposure to asbestos and fibers was “foreseeable and could or should have been anticipated by all the entities as defendants; that they each knew or should have known that asbestos is toxic, poisonous and has a deleterious effect on the health of persons exposed to it, and that it posed an unreasonable risk of harm to persons in Blackford-Cleeton’s position. Because “such exposure was foreseeable,” the suit alleges, each of the defendants are responsible for what’s happened to Blackford-Cleeton (an unspecified form of malignant mesothelioma, caused primarily by exposure to asbestos, but other things can cause it, too.) She was diagnosed with it in June of 2015, and has become disabled because of it.
She is asking for compensation under a count of Negligence on the parts of the listed Marathon companies and corporations; a count of Willful/Wanton Misconduct on the parts of the same entities; two counts of Negligence and Loss of Consortium against same; and a count of Negligence on the remainder of the defendants as a final count in the case.
Blackford-Cleeton is being represented by the law firm of Simmons, Hanley and Conroy in Springfield. No next hearing has been set.