The State - News from Aug. 7, 1987

A Napa County jury awarded a dying man $750,000 in a major victory over the manufacturing company that made the asbestos he claims gave him cancer, his attorney reported. Albert Haberger, 60, the county’s first and only public administrator until he retired last December, was too ill to testify at length during the trial due to mesothelioma, an incurable lung cancer whose only known cause is asbestos exposure. His attorney, Al Brayton, called the Superior Court verdict a “stunning victory” against Raymark Industries Inc. of Bridgeport, Conn., adding that attorneys for the firm had hoped for an award of only $125,000 to $150,000. “This could well be an important decision offering significant hope for the thousands of asbestos victims who are still seeking financial compensation in California courts,” Brayton said. Raymark made asbestos material used as insulation on ships when Haberger was employed as a shipfitter in the Boston Navy Yard from 1942 to 1945.