‘They made a huge profit knowing they’d kill people’: US firms use tactics to avoid paying asbestos victims

Advocates say corporate strategy known as Texas two-step' is being used as menu choice' to avoid paying compensation

Before his retirement in 2009, Peter Bergrud was, for decades, a construction worker, laying cement, water and sewage pipes in trenches around Seattle. Bergrud often did the handling, cutting and laying of the cement pipe himself because he was so skilled.

In early 2018, he started having problems breathing, and became quickly out of breath. In February that year, he was diagnosed with two forms of mesothelioma, and told these types of cancer were only caused by asbestos exposure. Doctors told him and his family he would not survive surgery or chemotherapy.