PITTSBURGH – In the wake of a key ruling for asbestos lawyers, Penn State University now faces a lawsuit alleging it is to blame for the illness of a former employee.
Gerald Anderson sued the school this month in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas, with help from a state Supreme Court decision earlier this year that lets employees sue their employers over asbestos outside of the four-year window stipulated in the Occupational Disease Act.
Statutes of limitations can create confusion in asbestos cases, given diseases like mesothelioma take decades after exposure to manifest. Anderson worked at Penn State from 1967-2004 and claims he was exposed to asbestos until 1978 at buildings in Altoona and University Park.
It wasn’t until 2024 that he was diagnosed with asbestosis and earlier this year, he learned he suffers from lung cancer.
Since his illness did not reveal itself until more than 300 weeks after his last occupational exposure to asbestos, he is ineligible for Workers’ Compensation, so a civil lawsuit is his only shot.
One Supreme Court justice who disagreed with extending the time employees could sue employers over asbestos said it was up to the legislature to add that measure to state law. David Wecht, a Democrat, said others on the court were putting their own policies in place.
"What I strongly object to is the Majority's suggestion that we should... falsely assert that the General Assembly did not intend to deny a civil tort remedy to claimants whose diseases manifest too late," Wecht wrote.
"The fact is that the legislature did intend to create a dual denial system."
How lawmakers worded the ODA is unambiguous, Wecht wrote.
"Put simply, I believe that today's decision uses and abuses the tools of statutory interpretation to distort, rather than uncover, the legislature's true intent," he added.
Another former Penn State employee, Donna Winkle, sued in Pittsburgh in July.
