Statute of Limitations Dooms Former Miner’s Claims Against Respirator Makers

PIKEVILLE, Ky. — A federal judge has awarded summary judgment to respirator makers after concluding that a former coal worker’s defect claims were brought outside the one-year statute of limitations.

The judge also decided that it would be “futile” to allow Jim and Linda Boggs to amend their complaint a third time to allege that Jim Boggs suffers from work-related lung cancer because that claim, too, would fall outside the statute of limitations.

Jim Boggs alleged that he was exposed to coal dust, despite the use of respirators, while working as an underground minder from 1972 to 1986.

He …