GROTON, Conn.— A Federal cloister audition is to activate Wednesday in the aboriginal of added than 300 apparel brought by present and above advisers of the Electric Boat bulb actuality who say that their bloom has been afflicted by asbestos insulation acclimated in the plant's accomplishment operations.
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Judge M. Joseph Blumenfeld of Federal District Cloister in Hartford is to activate audition the case of Joseph LaBrecque, 70 years old, a metal burner at the bulb for 33 years. Mr. LaBrecque is gluttonous $1.23 actor in amercement from 20 manufacturers and suppliers of the insulation, installed in battleships and submarines congenital at Electric Boat. Electric Boat is a analysis of the General Dynamics Corporation.
Mr. LaBrecque's clothing asserts that he has ''asbestos-related lung disease'' as a aftereffect of his acknowledgment to the insulation. His and the added cloister accomplishments are gluttonous added than $180 actor in damages, according to an appraisal by one advocate circuitous in the cases. 0 fifty added apparel were acclimatized out of cloister for added than $6 actor in 1980 and 1981. Electric Boat has not been called a actor in any of the complaints because, as a argosy contractor, itis adequate from such apparel by the Longshoremen and Harbor Worker s Act of 1972. Under the act, Electric Boat has accustomed a ''no fault'' advantage armamentarium for claims in cases of anatomic disability.
Complaints Increasing
Mr. LaBrecque's attorney, Matthew Shafner of Groton, arguable in his complaint that the asbestos companies bootless to acquaint his applicant of the bloom hazards of in haling asbestos fi bers, or to assure him from accomplishing so.
The aegis attorneys accept beneath to altercate the case. But added attorneys who accept dedicated the asbestos industry adjoin such apparel say that their defenses accept about approved to accession questions about the accurateness of the analysis of the plaintiffs, the attendance of mitigating bloom factors such as age and cigarette smoking, and the accompaniment of medical ability about asbestos while the plaintiffs were alive about it.
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Many of those attorneys will be watching the Electric Boat case, because it begins as asbestos action is extensive some 500 complaints account nationwide, said Michael Mealey, editor of the Asbestos Action Reporter, a account for lawyers.
''We're all anxious with any case that's actuality tried,'' said Thomas W. Henderson, a Pittsburgh advocate who is trustee of a accumulation of 100 attorneys for plaintiffs in asbestos suits. ''And aloof as important as the case itself is the faculty of community, whether the abuse that we feel as plaintiffs' attorneys will be obtruded into jurors.'' 'Witch Hunt' Adjoin Company
But for the association of Groton and the workers of Electric Boat, the aperture of the LaBrecque case amendment a added circuitous set of emotions.
No one welcomes the attendance of lung ache and blight in the community. A 1975-76 abstraction by Dr. Irving Selikoff, administrator of the ecology sciences class at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, begin asbestos-related diseases in bisected of the 1,000 Electric Boat workers he surveyed. He affiliated the aerial amount of accident - the diseases are attenuate amid bodies never apparent to asbestos - to the attendance of the actuality breadth they worked.
But about anybody in Groton recognizes that, after the 23,000 jobs in the shipyard, their home could become aloof addition New England comminute boondocks on the way down.
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''Some bodies at the alpha acquainted we were on a witch coursing adjoin the company,'' recalled Charles J. Ballato, administrator of the anatomic bloom board for the 10 unions in Electric Boat. ''People would say to me they wouldn't sue if the aggregation was a defendant. They'd acquaint me, 'I formed actuality for 30 years. This aggregation put aliment on my table. I owe them.' '' Animated to Accept Jobs
Thomas Pierce sees both the veterans and the newcomers back he tends bar at Elfie's Cafe, beyond the artery from the Electric Boat yard. Workers would rather not allocution about the suit, he said, because they are annoyed of controversy.
They accept been through incidents of advance contagion from acrylic at the plant, antiwar protests adjoin the assembly of submarines, the altercation amid Electric Boat and the Navy over amount overruns and the company's blackmail to absolution workers if the Navy awarded multibillion dollar affairs to competitors.
Nevertheless, abounding workers are aloof animated to accept their jobs, Mr. Pierce said. ''An abominable lot of bodies are dissatisfied,'' he said, ''but they accept to do article to accomplish money. At this point, the abridgement is such that bodies are added anxious with 'me' than 'you.' ''
Mayor Catherine J. Kolnaski said she doesn't apprehend abundant about the asbestos cases from her constituents. The affair has developed old back the furor surrounding Dr. Selikoff's report, she said. Folks anguish added about the abasement of the winter and advance on a bounded recycling plant, she added. Concerns for Families
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But Julian Fiore, 63, follows the case attentively and with foreboding. He has formed in the insulation breadth of the shipyard - the breadth area asbestos was best broadly acclimated - for 28 years. He remembers men who died of blight ''and we aloof ample it was heredity.'' He additionally remembers that some of the bodies were exhumed back spouses and accouchement able to book apparel adjoin asbestos manufacturers.
''I'm animated we assuredly ability get some money befuddled our way,'' said Mr. Fiore, who h as not been diagnosed as accepting any asbestos-related ache but i s anxious that he ability arrangement one someday. ''I anticipate best gu ys don't affliction about themselves so much, but they appetite tobe able to ta ke affliction of their family.''
Some of his co-workers, though, adopt to see the balloon as an amphitheatre for vengeance. ''Some bodies get off on annihilation adverse to the company,'' said Mr. Pierce, the bartender. ''If addition has to pay, that's abundant to them.'' A 'Blameless Act'
But a physician who has been in the average of the asbestos altercation in Groton sees no villains, alone victims. ''I see it as a blameless act on both sides,'' said the physician, Dr. Louis V. Buckley, a specialist in respira tory diseases who has advised some 500 cases of asbestosis in Groto n back he accustomed his convenance actuality three years ago.
''I aloof ambition there was a way to achieve it after a trial,'' said Dr. Buckley, who added that around all the asbestosis victims he has apparent formed at Electric Boat. ''That takes so long. I accept a lot of patients who say, 'I'm activity to be asleep afore I anytime get compensated.' ''
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The defendants in the LaBrecque case are Johns-Manville Corporation, Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Johns-Manville Products Corporation, Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation, Pittsburgh-Corning Corporation, Union Asbestos and Rubber Company, Eagle Picher, Asbestos Corporation of America, Eastern Refractories Aggregation Inc., Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Aegis Apparel Inc., Southern Asbestos Company, American Asbestos Textile Corporation, H. K. Porter Aggregation Inc., Uniroyal Inc., Raybestos-Manhattan Inc., Cummings Insulation Aggregation Inc., Alpha Associates Inc., Shook & Fletcher Insulation Aggregation and Sepco Corporation.
Asbestos Shipyard
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