Lawrence Nelson: Continued

In 1936, Lawrence Nelson filed a case against The International Smelting and Refining Company. The document charges the corporation with knowingly exposing its workforce to toxic compounds without properly informing them of the consequences.

As our previous post recounted, Nelson was hospitalized after his left side was paralyzed after working with white lead and other lead products at the plant for many years. The company brushed off his tragic fate as an ordinary, even expected, occupational hazard, blaming the severity of his case on complications with syphilis.

However, in his complaint for damages, Nelson pointed to company negligence:

Due to his contact with noxious vapors of lead and other substances, coupled with a lack of access to adequate hygenic equipment, he became ill.

"Plaintiff's head, legs, arms, tissues, ligaments, muscles, nerves, and body in all of their parts have become saturated with lead and lead poisoning. That by reason of said lead poisoning, plaintiff suffered cerebral-hemmorhage and became paralized on the left side...and will never be able to work again at a gainful occupation."

Nelson was not provided with gas masks, and wore clothes and ate food that remained in the same enclosure as his work with poisonpus substances. It was the corporation's carelessness that resulted in Nelson's tragic paralysis. Such acts of negligence and misinformation, unfortunately, are repeated throughout history by industry. Even if legal settlements were won by the defendent, policy changes in the work environment did not automatically follow.