Secondary Asbestos Exposure
Secondary asbestos exposure occurs when workers unknowingly bring asbestos fibers home on their hair, clothes and skin, putting family members at risk of serious illnesses. You may have a claim if take-home exposure caused asbestos-related diseases in your family.
Has a family member been diagnosed with mesothelioma or another asbestos disease? See Your Legal Options: a free, confidential case evaluation is available anytime.
What Is Secondary Asbestos Exposure?
Secondary asbestos exposure happens when a person is exposed to asbestos fibers brought home by someone who works directly with the material. The exposed person often does not work with asbestos themselves. Secondary exposure can also lead to a mesothelioma diagnosis.
This type of exposure is also known as secondhand, take-home or household exposure. Secondary asbestos exposure has the same risks as primary exposure. Spouses, children and other family members are among the most common groups at risk for secondary asbestos exposure.
How Does Take-Home Asbestos Exposure Happen?
Take-home asbestos exposure occurs because asbestos fibers are tiny and sticky. They cling to work clothes, hair, skin and tools. The fibers don’t wash off easily or brush away. Once a worker who is exposed to asbestos returns home, the fibers are brought into the household and expose family members.
Common Exposure Methods:
- Hair and skin: Fibers cling to the worker’s body, exposing family members who greet the worker with a hug.
- Family transportation: The worker contaminates seats and upholstery during their commute home.
- Laundry: Spouses or children who shake out and wash dusty clothes inhale fibers that the worker brings home. This is a classic, heavily litigated exposure method.
- Shoes and tools: When workers bring worksite items inside, they release fibers into homes.
- Work clothes and uniforms: When workers wear these items home from the job site, they bring fibers into the house.
High-risk source jobs included shipyard workers, insulation and boiler workers, construction and demolition crews, auto mechanics (especially those who work with brakes and clutches), power plant workers, refinery workers and factory workers.
Who Is at Risk of Secondary Asbestos Exposure?
People living with a worker who encounters asbestos on the job are at risk of secondary asbestos exposure. It’s possible for anyone to inhale the fibers, regardless of how healthy the person is.
Who Is at Risk
- Children: Hugging a parent in dusty clothing, sitting on contaminated laps or car seats and playing near work gear put children at risk.
- Spouses: Wives who laundered work clothes daily for years are at risk. Women are disproportionately represented in take-home mesothelioma cases.
- Other household members: Anyone sharing a home with a heavily exposed worker over many years risked secondary asbestos exposure.
Occupations that work with coworkers who handle asbestos are also at risk of exposure. Painters at construction sites or renovations do not handle asbestos in their work but work with pipefitters, electricians and insulators that come in direct contact with asbestos through asbestos debris on clothes, hair or skin. Coworkers, acquaintances or strangers can put someone at risk for asbestos exposure, even when they have never handled asbestos.
Can You Get Mesothelioma From Secondary Exposure?
Secondary asbestos exposure can cause mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. Research shows that non-occupational and household exposure can be a cause of serious health issues.
Diseases Linked to Asbestos
- Asbestosis: Scarring of lung tissue.
- Lung cancer: Abnormal and uncontrolled cell division in lung tissue.
- Mesothelioma: An aggressive, incurable cancer that is almost always caused by asbestos.
- Pleural disease: Thickening or fluid buildup around the lungs.
It can take 10 to 50 years to receive a diagnosis after exposure, depending on the disease. A child or spouse exposed in the 1970s or 1980s may be diagnosed today. This is why cases surface decades after the exposed worker has retired or passed away.
How Dangerous Is Secondhand Asbestos Exposure?
There is no known safe level of asbestos exposure. A one-time brief contact may be lower-risk, while repeated household exposure over a long period of time poses documented danger.
Government agencies like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) say that there hasn’t been a threshold identified below which asbestos exposure has no cancer risk. Even short exposures have caused mesothelioma in rare cases.
If you or a family member lived with someone who worked around asbestos, it’s reasonable to be concerned and seek medical evaluation.
How Do You Prove a Secondary Asbestos Exposure Claim?
The hardest part of a take-home exposure case is proving where the asbestos came from. This requires product identification, coworker testimony, evidence of household contact and more. Fortunately, experienced law firms can help with this.
Secondary Asbestos Exposure Evidence
- Product identification: Tracing the specific asbestos products the family member’s worker handled and the manufacturers who made them.
- Witness and coworker testimony: Corroborating the worker’s job, the dust exposure and the take-home method.
- Employment, union and Social Security records: Identifying where and when the worker experienced exposure.
- Household contact evidence: Proving the relationship and living situation (who did the laundry, number of years in the home, etc).
- Medical records and pathology: Confirming the diagnosis and its asbestos link.
Plaintiffs typically bring claims against the manufacturers of asbestos products and the asbestos trust funds of bankrupt producers. They usually do not bring claims against the worker’s employer or family.
Deadlines to file a claim generally vary by state and run from the date of diagnosis or death. Filing a claim is time-sensitive, so getting a case evaluation early is important.
Your Legal Options and Compensation
A diagnosis, not just exposure, supports a claim. Family members diagnosed after household exposure, the exposed worker and surviving family members of an exposed person who passed away are all eligible for compensation.
Compensation can cover:
- Lost income
- Medical bills
- Pain and suffering
- Wrongful death and loss of companionship
The most common sources of recovery in these cases include lawsuits against manufacturers, asbestos trust fund claims and settlements. A Nemeroff attorney can help you pursue every claim that you are eligible to file.
Why Nemeroff Law Firm
Nemeroff Law understands that asbestos litigation is specialized. Take-home cases, in particular, require law firms that can try cases and build the chain of causation. We have won millions in settlements for our clients.
Key results from our firm:
- $650+ million: Total recovered for clients
- $65.6 million: Falloon v. Westinghouse Electric Corp. (NY)
- $55.5 million: Hernandez v. Kelly Moore Paint Company (TX)
- $17.4 million: Settlement for a secondary-exposure client
Nemeroff Law has 150+ combined attorney years of experience. Founder Rick Nemeroff has personally recovered $100+ million for clients.
We work on a contingency fee basis, so you pay nothing unless we win. Our attorneys travel nationwide. We have strong verdict markets in Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Texas.
“Manufacturers knew for decades that workers brought asbestos fibers home to their families. They concealed that danger. We hold them accountable.”Rick Nemeroff – Founder
Frequently Asked Questions
Secondary asbestos exposure occurs when a worker transports asbestos fibers home and exposes their family members. People also refer to it as secondhand or take-home exposure. The person with secondhand exposure usually never worked with asbestos directly.
Yes. Peer-reviewed and government sources have confirmed that it is possible to get mesothelioma from secondhand asbestos exposure. Spouses and children of workers have developed mesothelioma from take-home fibers.
There is no safe level of secondary asbestos exposure. The risk is cumulative. Repeated household exposure, including laundering work clothes or children hugging exposed parents after work, has real danger.
You can prove secondary asbestos exposure through product identification, co-worker testimony, employment records and household-contact evidence. Experienced law firms routinely build this causation chain.
A family member diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease can file a take-home exposure lawsuit. Alternately, a surviving spouse or child of someone with secondary asbestos exposure can file a wrongful death claim. Claims require a diagnosis and are generally filed against product manufacturers.
The latency period typically ranges from 10 to 50 years, depending on the disease. Diagnoses often occur decades after the household exposure happened.
Usually, the manufacturers who made the asbestos products and concealed the danger are liable, not the worker who brought fibers home.
Yes. Statutes of limitation generally vary by state and run from diagnosis or death. It’s important to speak to an attorney quickly.
D. Carl Money
D. Carl Money is a mesothelioma trial attorney and retired Army Lt. Col. licensed in TX, NY and the UK.