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THE DARK SIDE: My lungs are full of asbestos and I’m fine

By: David Ziemer, [email protected]//June 28, 2011//

THE DARK SIDE: My lungs are full of asbestos and I’m fine

By: David Ziemer, [email protected]//June 28, 2011//

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David Ziemer
David Ziemer

Back in the day, there was a tavern near 29th and Cleveland in Milwaukee called The Duke of York.

It was a fine establishment, owned by an Englishman named Bill, but, with him being English and all, people tended to refer to him as The Duke of York instead. Bill also had a home improvement business, and I worked for him in that enterprise.

We did all sorts of fun stuff. Suppose, for example, that a drug dealer kicks in the door of some housing unit; the next day, the landlord would pay us to go buy a used door from Lisbon Storm Screen & Door, and replace the broken one.

And sometimes, as you can imagine, we had to remove asbestos. Obviously, we wore no masks or protection whatsoever. Seatbelts, helmets, flu shots, protective masks – so not my style.

The way the Duke of York and I saw it, there are only two ways to develop asbestosis: work around asbestos every day, for years; or you chop it up and do lines of the stuff. We didn’t work with asbestos every day; and we certainly weren’t deliberately snorting it up our noses. So, we didn’t worry about it.

Thus, it was with great horror that I read the recent 7th Circuit opinion in U.S. v. Phillips, No. 10-2438 (7th Cir., June 17, 2011).

Phillips was convicted of removing and disposing of asbestos in violation of 42 U.S.C. 7413(c)(1). What was the sentence for this offense, you ask?

A fine of couple hundred dollars, perhaps, plus some remediation costs? No. He was actually sentenced to 18 months in federal prison.

Believe it or not, here in the Socialist States of America, we actually send businessmen to prison with murderers, rapists, and armed robbers, just because some bureaucrats don’t like the way they removed asbestos. This man didn’t do anything that we didn’t do all the time, without giving any thought at all.

The defendant argued that, to sustain a conviction, the government had to prove that he knew his actions were unlawful. But the court disagreed, and gave the term “knowingly;” its typical meaning – strict liability, regardless of intent. If you remove asbestos without complying with any and all applicable regulations, you are guilty, period.

But, I’m sure you’re curious about whatever happened to The Duke of York. Remember The Duke of York? This is a column about The Duke of York.

The tavern closed, I passed the bar exam and got into practicing law instead of removing asbestos and we sort of lost touch.

But one day, this hippie chick I knew decided that I needed to get out of the suburbs and expand my white-bread horizons a little. So, she invited me to go to this bar in the Riverwest area (for those of you who aren’t familiar with Milwaukee, Riverwest is where the vegetarians live).

So, she introduces me to “Bill,” the bartender. And I’m like, “That’s not Bill; that is The Duke of York himself.”

We had a grand time reminiscing about the old days: replacing cheap doors that drug dealers had broken down and removing asbestos without any protection. But best of all, my hippie chick never tried to expand my horizons again.

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