Former Maryland mayor who developed lung cancer files asbestos mass tort claim against CSX Transportation

An elderly Maryland man who was diagnosed with lung cancer on Jan. 30 of last year has

filed a mass tort injury claim in the asbestos docket consolidated in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Lawyers representing Frank K. Nethken, 82, and his wife, Velma, filed suit in federal court on March 25 against CSX Transportation.

The complaint states that Frank Nethken’s lung cancer diagnosis was a direct result of the plaintiff having been exposed to products containing asbestos during his working years.

An employment history contained within the complaint shows that Frank Nethken worked as a United States Navy ground controller, as a machinist at Cumberland Steel, as a rocket inspector for Allegheny Ballistics Lab, (now ATK Rocket Center in West Virginia), and as a machinist for B&O Railroad.

The lawsuit also says that Nethken served as mayor of the City of Cumberland in Maryland from 1978 to 1982.

He was exposed to asbestos in all of these positions, the complaint alleges.

Nethken believes he was exposed to asbestos fiber or asbestos products manufactured, sold, distributed or otherwise placed into the stream of commerce by the defendants, the suit states.

The suit notes that the plaintiff was a pack-to-a-pack-and-a-half-a-day cigarette smoker from 1951 to 2012.

The plaintiffs are seeking damages in excess of $100,000, plus interest, costs and unspecified punitive damages.

They are being represented by attorney Robert E. Paul of the Philadelphia firm Paul, Reich & Myers.

The federal case number is 2:13-cv-01544-ER.