Body-Snatching Auto Maker Attempts to Avert Asbestos Lawsuit

In what has to be one of the most outrageous attempts on record to avoid a lawsuit, Chrysler Company sent a process server to reclaim body tissues before one of its victims was properly in the ground or the widow had returned home.

According to a local news station, Harold St. John of Cranbury, New Jersey sued Chrysler and Honeywell because his job as a automobile brake mechanic in the 1950 and 60s led to his untimely death at age 67 from what he, and his family, charge is malignant mesothelioma.

Mesothelioma is caused by asbestos, commonly found not only in automobile brake linings but also in insulation, floor and roofing tiles, tile glues and acoustical ceiling panels, as well as other products, up to the 1970s, when health officials began realizing the dangers of asbestos and moved to ban it.

The ban was only partially successful, when in 1989 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, moved to outlaw asbestos in most American-made products. Asbestos is still used by foreign manufacturers and imported into the U.S. in the form of brake linings and other products, though most responsible auto dealerships select only asbestos-free, American-made products where possible.

In St. John's case, the process server showed up at the gravesite and demanded the body be returned to the mortuary for tissue sampling - such tissues intended for use in an upcoming lawsuit - slated to begin March 9 but delayed as a result of St. John's untimely death on Feb. 28.

The process server's appearance was the result of Chrysler's obtaining a court order to get tissue samples from St. John on the same day his funeral was scheduled. The process server's arrival at the burial site in Holy Cross Cemetery in Jamesburg, and subsequent halting of same, has the St. John family outraged, the grieving widow near collapse, and the son up-in-arms. The funeral had already been paid for, but now someone will have to pay extra for a second round of interment services. This, after years of medical expenses to treat St. John's mesothelioma - an expensive but essentially incurable form of lung cancer - has depleted the family's resources.

The process server presented the court order to the funeral director at the gravesite, while St. John's widow, Dianne, son Dennis, and daughter Debbie were still present.

According to WCBS-TV, Chrysler spokesperson Michael Palese later made a statement saying that the gravesite tactics were "routine". The exact context is as follows:

"Although Chrysler clearly intended no disrespect to the late Mr. St. John and to the St. John family, the process of obtaining a tissue sample is routine in such matters in order to preserve tissue needed to establish the cause of asbestos-related diseases."

Palese conspicuously added that studies have demonstrated no link between mesothelioma and automotive brake linings. In fact, precisely the opposite is true, as is shown in a recent study published by ScienceDirect entitled, Respiratory impairment due to asbestos exposure in brake-lining workers. Scientific literature also contains at least five other papers which directly link the two.

Chrysler continues to claim that it acted in a timely and legal fashion, but St. John's widow charges that the additional samples were unnecessary because St. John had already undergone a painful biopsy to provide a tissue sample from the pleural lining of his cancer-ridden lungs while he was still alive.

The widow further noted that the lawsuit has been pending for more than a year. St. John's daughter added that Chrysler's actions at the gravesite were "beyond ruthless", and the court order merely another stall tactic. "They have all the evidence they need."

Until the status of the body is resolved, St. John will remain at the David Demarco Funeral home in Monroe Township. St. John was diagnosed with mesothelioma early in 2008.

Chrysler, experiencing a 2008 loss of 14 percent on its auto sales and faced with another lean economic year, may have dug its own grave in this latest, if unintended, public relations gaffe.

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