Secondary & Household Asbestos Exposure Claims

Quick answer

Covers spouses, children, and other household members exposed to asbestos carried home on work clothes, tools, or in a car
The claim is built around the worker's job history even when the worker themselves never got sick
The working family member does not need to be living for the claim to proceed
Laundry is the classic exposure route — shaking out coveralls released fiber directly into a person's breathing space
No upfront cost, and we come to you. Call (215) 810-0199

Secondary exposure — take-home exposure — is what happened when asbestos left the plant on somebody's clothes. A worker at the Navy Yard, the South Philadelphia refineries, PECO powerhouses, and the Budd plants finished a shift covered in dust, drove home through Port Richmond, Kensington, Fishtown, South Philadelphia, Manayunk, and the Northeast, and the dust came with him: into the car, onto the porch, into the hamper. Whoever handled that laundry got a concentrated dose, often daily, for years. Frequently that was a wife. Sometimes it was a child who hugged a father in his work clothes.

These claims are legally the same in one respect and different in another. The same, in that the responsibility rests on the companies that made and sold asbestos products they knew to be dangerous. Different, in that the person who got sick has no employment record of their own. Nothing in a personnel file will show it. So the case has to be assembled around the worker's history — his employer, his job title, his years, the products he handled — and then connected to the household routine that carried fiber home.

That means the questions we ask are domestic rather than industrial, and people are sometimes surprised by them. Who did the laundry. Whether the work clothes were washed with everything else. Whether he shook them out on the back step first. Whether he changed at the plant or drove home in them. Whether the same car carried the family on weekends. These ordinary details are, quite literally, the evidence.

The working family member does not need to be alive, and often is not — sometimes he never developed an asbestos disease at all, which throws families off entirely. Neither fact ends the claim. What matters is that his job put asbestos in the house. Philadelphia is unusual: the Court of Common Pleas runs a Complex Litigation Center with a dedicated asbestos program, so asbestos cases here are heard by judges who handle them constantly rather than as a once-a-decade oddity.

Time limits apply and generally run from the diagnosis rather than from the exposure, which was often decades earlier. Every case is different, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Call (215) 810-0199

Secondary & Household Exposure Claims — fees and costs in Philadelphia

Consultation and initial case review, at home or at the hospital	$0
Mesothelioma or asbestos claim, handled on contingency	No fee unless there is a recovery — the percentage is agreed in writing before representation begins
Requesting employment, union, and military records on your behalf	Included in the case review

No fee unless there is a recovery. Any fee is a percentage agreed in writing before representation begins.

Secondary & Household Exposure Claims — questions, answered

I never worked around asbestos. My husband did. Can I still have a claim?

Yes. Take-home or secondary exposure claims exist precisely for household members who breathed asbestos carried home on a worker's clothing, tools, or vehicle.

My father worked in the mills but never got sick. Does that matter?

No. The claim depends on his exposure to asbestos products at work and on the dust reaching the household, not on whether he developed a disease himself.

How do we prove household exposure from decades ago in Philadelphia?

By combining the worker's employment history — employer, job title, years, products — with the household routine: who did the laundry, whether uniforms were shaken out, whether the same car ran between the plant and the family. Co-workers can corroborate the job-site half.

The family member who worked around asbestos has died. Can I still file?

Generally yes. The claim rests on his documented job history, not on his being available to testify.

When does the deadline start for a take-home exposure claim?

Pennsylvania time limits generally run from diagnosis rather than from the exposure, which was often decades earlier. The precise date can be disputed, so it is worth reviewing early.