ZELIENOPLE — A borough resident has been awarded $1.085 million in damages more than three years after her husband died of mesothelioma.

Ann Rabovsky, widow of Valent Rabovsky, will receive the money after a national trial law firm won a class-action lawsuit against her husband’s former employer, Crane Co. of Stamford, Conn.

Valent Rabovsky died less than three years after being diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. He was diagnosed with the disease in September 2009 and died in June 2012 at the age of 88.

Jurors in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania returned their verdict Tuesday following an eight-day trial and four hours of deliberations. The jury found that the company was “30 percent liable” for Rabovsky’s death, according to a statement from Androvett Legal Media.

“Crane manufactured industrial valves with asbestos-containing gaskets and packing, which Mr. Rabovsky handled regularly while working as a millwright from 1951 to 1986 at various sites in Pennsylvania,” according to the statement.

Jurors assessed 70 percent liability for his asbestos exposure against seven other companies that were no longer named as defendants in the lawsuit. A hearing on the eventual final judgment is scheduled for April.

“Val’s life focused around spending time with his family and singing in his church choir,” said Charles Soechting Jr. in the statement. Soechting is an attorney at Dallas-based Simon Greenstone Panatier Bartlett P.C. who tried the case along with attorney Sam Iola.

Rabovsky sang in the Harmony-Zelienople United Methodist Church choir.

“In fact, that’s how he learned he was sick because his lungs wouldn’t let him sing anymore,” Soechting said. “The jury heard all of the evidence and determined Val did nothing wrong and that his disease was caused solely by the negligence of Crane Co. and other companies.”

When contacted, Ann Rabovsky said she was unaware of the jury’s decision to award the $1.085 million to her late husband’s estate.

She called the latest update “shocking.”

Lynn Dobrick, the Rabovskys’ daughter and another plaintiff in the case, did not want to comment.

Soechting said in the release that punitive damages will be sought in a separate phase of the lawsuit. The case is Dobrick v. Air & Liquid Systems Corp.