Asbestos

What is Asbestos?

Asbestos is a naturally occurring fiber used for many years in a number of products, including brake linings. Breathing the fiber for many years can cause asbestosis, a condition that is not curable.

Decades after the first asbestos case was filed in Beaumont alleging harm from asbestos exposure, these cases have flooded into our nation's courts. No state has felt the burden of this litigation landslide more than Texas, where as many as 40 percent of all claims nationally have been filed in recent years.

Most of these lawsuits – some put estimates as high as 89 percent – were filed on behalf of plaintiffs with questionable claims or who are not impaired.

The Texas Legislature in 2005 passed Senate Bill 15, major asbestos litigation reform that took effect Sept. 1, 2005. The new law brings much needed fairness to the asbestos litigation process so that the truly injured receive the compensation and help they need, as opposed to waiting in line behind thousands who are not sick. The law also protects employers that have nothing to do with asbestos from being targets of frivolous lawsuits.

Unfortunately, SB 15 will not affect the cases already in our state's judicial system, including thousands of new ones which were filed in the time period between the passage of the law and when it took effect.

CALA will be watching for attempts by personal injury lawyers to weaken this reform.

Trial Lawyers Inc.: Asbestos

This report describes Trial Lawyers, Inc.'s asbestos litigation business line in more detail. A flame retardant originally thought to be a “magic mineral,” asbestos ended up causing the death of thousands of individuals; likewise, litigation that originally sought redress for the truly injured metastasized into a big business that in too many cases recruited sham victims to beef up the plaintiffs' bar's bottom line.  Download your copy of this report now.

Did you know?

• Lawyers say a typical award in a mesothelioma settlement is $1 million, and attorneys get 40% ( Wall Street Journal , Lawyers Bid Up Value of Web-Search Ads, April 8, 2004).
  
  
• For asbestos cases that go to trial, the mean award in 2001 was $6 million, triple the amount two years earlier ( Wall Street Journal , Lawyers Bid Up Value of Web-Search Ads, April 8, 2004).
  
  
• The longest-running mass tort in U.S. history and arguably the most unjust, asbestos litigation has so far bankrupted 67 companies and wrung $54 billion from corporations (Stephen J. Carroll et al., Asbestos Litigation Costs and Compensation: An Interim Report, viii).
  
  
• Tillinghast-Towers Perrin reported that a continuing swell of asbestos litigation helped drive up U.S. tort costs by $27.4 billion to $233 billion in 2002 ( Tillinghast-Towers Perrin , December 2003).
  
  
• More than 475,000 “meritless asbestos claims” have won…a total of more than $28.5 billion in unwarranted recoveries – and counting. More than $10 billion of this has gone to plaintiffs' lawyers ( National Journal , Taylor, Stuart Jr. Asbestos litigation: Evidence of massive corruption? January 3, 2004).
  
  
• Asbestos litigation abuse costs jobs. Approximately 52,000 to 60,000 workers have already lost their jobs due to the asbestos-related bankruptcies of the companies that employed them ( SEBAGO Associates , January 23, 2003)
  
  
• Taxpayers pay an estimated $80 million for workers displaced by asbestos bankruptcies ( NERA Economic Consulting , January 23, 2003).