CSX only defendant in asbestos suit

CHARLESTON - A Charleston man says his throat cancer is the result of working for CSX Transportation.

Arnold Green filed a lawsuit Dec. 1 in Kanawha Circuit Court against the railroad giant that he says he worked for from 1969-93.

Mark Wade of Wade Law Office in Oakmont, Pa., is representing Green.

"Upon beginning employment and while engaged in the course of his employment with CSX, Plaintiff was required and caused to work with and in the vicinity of toxic and/or pathogenic liquids, solids, dusts, fumes, vapors, mists or gases, including but not limited to asbestos and asbestos-containing products and materials, sand, rock dust, coal dust, welding fumes and diesel smoke and fumes which caused him to suffer sever, permanent and life-threatening injury to his person," the complaint says.

He charges CSX with a violation of the Federal Employer's Liability Act for not providing a "reasonably safe place to work."

He also says CSX should have tested to see any harm that could occur as the result of asbestos fibers mixing with diesel smoke and fumes.

He seeks compensatory damages for medical expenses, great pain, extreme nervousness and mental anguish and adds that CSX violated the Locomotive Boiler Inspection Act by failing to provide a locomotive in a safe condition.

A visiting judge will be assigned the case.

Kanawha Circuit Court case number 06-C-2574