Asbestos victim’s dying words aired in wrongful death case against Buffet’s railroad

By AMY BETH HANSON and MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The dying words of an Oregon man who had an asbestos-linked cancer are being replayed in a federal courtroom for a jury hearing a wrongful death case against Warren Buffett’s BNSF Railway. Attorneys for the estates of Thomas Wells and a second mesothelioma victim accuse the railroad and its corporate predecessors in a lawsuit of polluting Libby, Montana, with asbestos-contaminated vermiculite. Jurors on Monday heard portions of a videotaped deposition of Wells that was recorded the day before he died in 2020. Vermiculite from a nearby mine was transported through the remote town’s rail yard in boxcars for much of last century. BNSF denies responsibility for polluting the town.