Through PU attorney Keith Hyde, Sandra Newman, widow of Charles Newman, filed the suit on May 2 in Jefferson County District Court.
Some of the defendants include AMOCO, BP, ExxonMobil, DuPont, Shell, Texaco and Union Oil.
According to the lawsuit, Charles Newman was a long-term Texaco employee of Texaco at its Port Arthur refinery, working as lab technician where he was exposed to benzene.
During his employment from the 1950s to 1970s, he was “needlessly” exposed to the chemical, causing him to develop the “deadly cancer of the lymphohematopoietic system known as Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer from which he died a painful and horrible death in January 2016,” the suit states.
The suit further accuses the defendants of gross negligence for failing to warn and protect Newman.
His widow is suing for exemplary damages.
Judge Milton Shuffield, 136th District Court, is assigned to the case.
Case No. D-198406