John Comerford, senior partner Lipsitz, Ponterio & Comerford, LLC Attorneys at Law spoke with Emily Lampa about helping victims of asbestos exposure. John says it goes back to his childhood days where his father was a physician in Niagara Falls and he had a medical practice in Love Canal. He says, “I’m not sure your young listeners even know what that is but that’s what really sparked the environmental movement in the United States back in the 70’s and as a young person I grew up in the shadows of that and was just devastated at the effect at what I call corporate recklessness had on a community and the harm it created. When I went to college I decided to study environmental science and when I came home to Niagara County, so many of my friends in my community had fathers that worked in the chemical industry as laborers and union trades people throughout Buffalo Avenue, and their golden years were robbed from them. They weren’t golden; they went into a very difficult work setting for twenty, thirty, forty years, with the hope they could raise embrace their golden years and get to know their grandchildren a little bit. Well, they developed cancer from occupational exposures, and this isn’t just my story, it’s the story of Michael Ponterio, whose family members came from Italy to work at Durez in North Tonawanda, NY. John Lipsitz, my partner, his family goes back literally generations. His father and grandfather, for serving the union workers who really got the raw end of the stick and so we dedicated our law practice to helping those who can’t speak for themselves in a court of law. He goes on to say, we’ve uncovered so much evidence and what’s tragic about this story is that we uncovered evidence showing that so many of these companies absolutely knew this would happen to workers, but they said to themselves, hey these cancers don’t show up for ten, twenty, thirty, forty years later. They call that medical latency and so they had a window to get away with some really awful things and we are here to make sure that these corporations will be held responsible for what they’ve done.”
John Comerford says, “We are very proud of what we do, we have tremendous passion for what we do, and I think we are just getting started here.”
You can call them at 716-849-0701.
For more information visit lipsitzponterio.com.
