Trial to begin against railroad over deaths in Montana town where thousands were exposed to asbestos [Video]

HELENA, Mont. – A trial begins Monday against Warren Buffett’s BNSF Railway over the lung cancer deaths of two people who lived in a small northwestern Montana town where thousands of people were exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine.

For decades, the W.R. Grace & Co. mine near Libby produced the contaminated vermiculite that exposed residents to asbestos, sickening thousands and leading to the deaths of hundreds.

The estates of Thomas Wells, of LaConner, Oregon, and Joyce Walder, of Westminster, California, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in 2021, arguing that BNSF and its corporate predecessors stored asbestos-laden vermiculite in a large rail yard in town before shipping it to plants where it was heated to expand it for use as insulation.

The railroad failed to contain the dust from the vermiculite, allowing it — and the asbestos it contained — to be blown around town without warning residents about its dangers, …