Chrysler Subpoenas Body at Funeral Preventing Burial in LawsuitTug-of-War

I don't get it:

-------------------
The 67-year-old retired airline employee died believing his mesothelioma
was caused by the automobile brake linings he installed at his father's
auto shop in the late 1950s and early '60s. He sued both Honeywell, and
Chrysler...
-------------------

Why doesn't he sue his father for creating an unsafe workplace
environment, or for not providing him with appropriate breathing and
dust abatement apparatus?

Why sue Chrysler? Did his father's auto shop only service Chrysler
vehicles - not Ford or GM or others?

He was also an airline employee? What was his airline job? Did he, per
chance, perform brake maintenance on planes?

------------------------------------

http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=292753&widget=1

-------------------------------------

http://wcbstv.com/seenat11/graveside.subpoena.harold.2.952746.html

GRAVE ROBBERS: Chrysler Subpoenas Body At Funeral

The Family Of Harold St. John Is Outraged After Automobile Company
Prevents Burial At Very Last Second

Denise St. John is widow whose husband has been dead since last
Saturday, but his grave is still empty. She is livid.

"I have to bury my husband again," she told CBS 2 HD in her daughter's
Cranbury, N.J. home Friday night.

"Wouldn't you be angry if you had to bury a loved one again?"

Harold St. John's remains are the object of a tug-of-war in a lawsuit
over his fatal asbestos-related illness. The 67-year-old retired airline
employee died believing his mesothelioma was caused by the automobile
brake linings he installed at his father's auto shop in the late 1950s
and early '60s. He sued both Honeywell, and Chrysler and the lawsuit was
due to got to trial this coming Monday, March 9.

However, his sudden death on Feb. 28 meant a delay in trial, but the
family was unprepared for the additional price they'd have to pay.
Chrysler went to court demanding access to the body for tissue tests,
and managed to get a court order the day of his funeral to prevent his
burial.

The problem is the court order came down while the funeral was already
in progress. The family sat through a Catholic rite of Christian burial,
rode to Holy Cross Cemetery in Jamesburg and prayed graveside expecting
that the casket bearing Harold's body would lowered to its final resting
place.

As it turned out a process server had been sent to observe the funeral
and once the mourners left the grave he served the funeral director with
papers demanding the body be brought back to his funeral home. The idea
of it still outrages surviving son Dennis.

"They waited until we left," he choked out between sobs. "I don't get
it."

Daughter Debbie Eisenbrey called it "cold."

"Chrysler's kicking us when we're down," she sobbed. "It's not fair."

Mike Palesi, a spokesman for the car company, issued a statement from
Detroit:

"Chrysler's sympathies are with the St. John family for their loss.
Unfortunately, this process is routine in such matters in order to
preserve tissue needed to establish the cause of asbestos-related
disease. Chrysler acted in a timely fashion, in accordance with
directions from the New Jersey Court of Appeals, and in full knowledge
of the family's attorneys. Numerous epidemiological studies have,
indeed, refuted the link between automotive products and
asbestos-related disease."

The family, though, said the lawsuit has been in the works for more than
a year and that Harold underwent a painful biopsy to provide a tissue
sample from the pleural lining of his cancer-ridden lungs while he was
still alive.

"They have all the evidence they need," Debbie insisted. "It's a stall
tactic. They're ruthless."

A hearing has been scheduled for Monday in state court in Newark where
the family vows to fight the demand for additional tissue samples, they
said on principle. Until the issue is resolved Harold St. John's body
will remain at the David Demarco Funeral home in Monroe Township.

 

I have a friend who was a union shop steward at a Coke plant.
One of the union driver's girlfriend's father died. His will requested
that his body be given to medical science. A few months after the
driver and his girlfriend were married, medical science was finished
with the body and returned it to the family for burial.
The driver requested bereavement time. Coke wouldn't give it to
him because:
A. It was too long after death for bereavement time.
And:
B. They weren't married at the time of death.

This issue went before a court. The driver won and got his
bereavement
time pay at a later time.

 

REPLY:

Very good questions, all. Here are the answers. When he worked as a
mechanic in the 1950's and 1960's the manufacturers of these asbestos
products did not warn anyone about the dangers, so his father didn't
know, either. There is evidence that the brake manufacturers knew of
the hazards back in the very early 1900's. They now put warnings on
everything and include safety procedures in their training manuals
with respect to asbestos hazards (not that they admit that in a
courtroom.)

Chrysler is not the only defendant in the case -- Chrysler and
Honeywell are simply the ones publicly pushing for an autopsy over the
family's religious objection. Finally, no, he did not do any
maintenance work of any type while employed by the airline. He drove
the baggage carts to and from the planes - no repair work.

Hope that clears things up -- again, good questions!

 

Those two companies had no choice.
Many other companies are involved as well.
This is a very serious case, since we all breathed those particles.

 

The way the story read, Chrysler and Honeywell has tissue samples from
this guy while he was alive.

If they needed (or wanted) more, especially post-mortem, they could have
told that to the family before he died so it wasn't a shock to them.

The story didn't mention that.

I don't think that asbestos has been in auto brake pads for the better
part of the past 20 years. It's old news, and has no current health
implications going forward.

PS: Was this guy a smoker? Family history?