From Detroit Free Press Staff & Wire Reports
ANGLETON, TEXAS — A southeast Texas jury awarded $10 million in damages Friday to the family of a woman who died of a lung disease after being exposed to asbestos dust in her father’s clothing.
The Brazoria County jury deliberated about eight hours before ordering Ford Motor Co. to pay $4.5 million to the estate of Carolyn Miller, who died of mesothelioma in 2000 at the age of 54.
Jurors also ordered the automaker to pay Miller’s father, John Roland, $500,000, and her mother, Alma Roland, was awarded $750,000. Her husband, Glenn Miller of Dearborn was awarded $2.75 million, and her daughter, Shawn Dean of Dearborn, was awarded $1.5 million.
Miller was exposed to asbestos dust when she washed the clothes her father wore to work at Ford’s Rouge plant in Dearborn, said Ron Eddins, the family’s attorney.
Roland, who now lives in Buford, Ga., was a contract worker who relined and demolished blast furnaces at the plant off and on between 1953 and 1964. He is still alive but has scarring on the surface of the lungs, Eddins said.
A Ford spokesman could not be reached for comment.
The case was tried in Brazoria County, just south of Houston, because some of the original defendants in the case have operations there. Most of them settled before the case went to trial.
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