The grand finale to a 3-decade court battle against Owens Corning reaped $5.2 billion for asbestos victims. Local attorney Matthew Bergman was a top negotiator.
By Bob Geballe
Washington Law & Politics
The first asbestos victim Matthew Bergman really bonded with was a man name Jewell Glass. He arrived in Seattle in 1948, after World War II ended, looking for work — which he found as a shipscaler.
“He worked in the only union that used African-Americans,” recalls Bergman, sitting in his law office on the sixth floor of the Howard Building in Pioneer Square. “He was in the holds of ships, cleaning up the debris from repair work. It was hard, terrible work. He made probably five to six thousand dollars a year.”
