Gordon A. Stemple, A Law Corporation
Gordon’s Story and Mission
It began with a worker from the Long Beach Naval Shipyard who came to Gordon for help. Within a year, meetings with shipyard workers had grown large enough to fill the largest room at the Long Beach Convention Center.
From shipyards and tire plants to communities affected by nuclear fallout in the Marshall Islands and contamination from a landfill, Gordon has represented people facing well-funded defendants that could afford to wait them out.
Sometimes it has been one person; sometimes thousands. The goal has remained the same: to obtain meaningful results for clients while helping make workplaces safer and, when possible, changing the environment for the better.
The 1977 turn
In 1977, at age 27, Gordon was a partner in a conventional Beverly Hills personal injury firm. One day, his secretary introduced him to James, a tall, thin boilermaker from the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. James was about 60 and wore overalls.
The shipyard had begun screening workers for asbestos-related disease. James had been diagnosed with mesothelioma and told he had six months or less to live.
He came with two requests. He wanted his family provided for. And he did not want updates about his case—legal or medical. He said he was not a brave man.
Gordon accepted the case. Across James's file, he wrote in bold red marker that James was not to be contacted unless absolutely necessary. The trust James placed in a lawyer he had only just met stayed with Gordon.
James invited Gordon to meet his coworkers. Within days, Gordon was seeing several shipyard workers at a time. He began keeping the office open at night so they would not lose wages to seek legal help. More workers followed.
Determined to understand what they faced, Gordon studied asbestos disease intensively. He read Dr. Irving Selikoff's work repeatedly and attended a ten-day seminar led by Selikoff at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. Scientists, physicians, insurers, attorneys, and union representatives gathered there—many of the people who would shape the asbestos litigation that followed.
Gordon kept his promise to James. About three months later, James's wife called. He was hospitalized at Kaiser and nearing death; he wanted Gordon to visit. Gordon explained that the case would not reach trial during James's lifetime, but that his family could continue it as a wrongful death action. The two said goodbye.
James's wife and children went on to bring one of the early mesothelioma wrongful death cases tried in Los Angeles. Their case resulted in a seven-figure verdict—an uncommon result at the time.
The work that followed
What began with one shipyard worker grew into litigation on a national scale. By 1982, Gordon was counsel of record in approximately one-quarter of the cases filed against Johns-Manville, then the nation's largest asbestos manufacturer, when it sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. He served on the health claimants' committee in that proceeding and in others. Those proceedings helped establish the asbestos compensation trust system used today.
The work did not end with asbestos. Stemple Law applied a collaborative approach to other serious health and environmental matters, including toxic exposures, contaminated groundwater, and nuclear fallout. Bringing together lawyers, scientists, evidence, and resources made it possible to pursue cases against defendants with substantial means.
The mission today
Mesothelioma is now widely recognized in asbestos litigation, and many firms devote considerable skill to those cases. Some firms accept mesothelioma cases only. But mesothelioma is not the only serious disease associated with asbestos exposure.
Asbestos can also cause asbestosis—scarring of the lungs—and increase the risk of lung cancer, including squamous cell carcinoma, adenocarcinoma, and small-cell carcinoma. Severe lung disease may also lead to cor pulmonale, a form of heart strain or failure caused by high blood pressure in the lungs due to fibrotic scaring. Asbestos exposure has also been linked to cancers of the larynx and may contribute to cancers in other parts of the body.
Stemple Law reviews both mesothelioma and other potentially asbestos-related claims. Gordon considers work history, the duration and intensity of exposure, the time since exposure, and medical evidence, including available imaging and records. The question is not simply whether someone has a familiar diagnosis. It is whether the evidence supports a claim that asbestos exposure substantially contributed to serious injury or death.
Many of the workers whose lives were changed by these exposures helped build and maintain the ships, aircraft, vehicles, and industrial equipment on which the country depended during World War II, Vietnam, and the decades between. Their illnesses may have emerged long after the work ended. That passage of time does not make their suffering less real or their claims less deserving of careful review.
SILICA AND MANUFACTURED STONE COUNTERTOPS
Today, another generation of skilled workers faces a devastating dust hazard.
Manufactured stone—often marketed as quartz—is widely used for kitchen and bathroom countertops. Many contain 90 percent or more crystalline silica. Cutting, drilling, grinding, and polishing these slabs can release respirable silica dust: particles small enough to reach deep into the lungs and cause permanent scarring.
Workers who fabricate and install these countertops have developed accelerated silicosis, a severe and sometimes rapidly progressive lung disease. Some are young adults. Some have needed lung transplants. Exposure to respirable crystalline silica also increases the risk of lung cancer.
California clinicians and workplace-safety authorities have raised alarms about this preventable disease, and regulators have strengthened protections for workers handling engineered stone.
No one should have to sacrifice their lungs—or their life—to make a countertop fit a kitchen.
If you or someone you love has developed breathing problems after working around manufactured stone dust, call Gordon. Stemple Law will listen, review the circumstances, and help determine whether a claim should be pursued.
If you see your harm below, call us.
Asbestos
Mesothelioma, asbestos lung cancer, and advanced asbestosis from industrial work.
Asbestos Practice
Silicosis
A worker or a family, a disease that should not have happened, a defendant with more money than the person who got hurt.
Silicosis Practice
Other Toxic Substances
Groundwater, pesticides, benzene, formaldehyde, dioxins, toxic mold, radiation.
Other Toxic Substances
Bad Faith Insurance
When an insurer denies a valid claim, lowballs it, or sits on it until the family gives up.
Bad Faith Insurance
