Battle over asbestos lawsuit bill heats up
Backers of legislation to end the nation's flood of asbestos injury suits call it a desperately needed cure to a broken court system that is bankrupting businesses and getting too little money to the truly ill.
But opponents say the bill is nothing more than a "corporate bailout" that would save defendant companies tens of billions of dollars and leave thousands of sick people empty-handed.
Lobbying and shrill rhetoric have intensified on both sides of the controversial proposal with the bill due to come up on the Senate floor beginning this week for as much as two weeks of debate. The measure would take away victims' rights to sue and compensate them over the next 30 years through a $140 billion, privately financed trust fund.
More than 700,000 asbestos victims have filed suits against companies that made or sold such asbestos-containing products as insulation, roofing materials and fire retardant sprays. But much of the awarded in court settlements and jury awards has gone to lawyers' fees and claimants who are not yet seriously ill.
With Republicans fearing they will lose seats in next fall's mid-term elections, some supporters see this as the last, best chance for congressional passage of legislation that has taken years to negotiate among businesses, insurers, labor unions and trial lawyers.
"If this bill goes down, I think there is not going to be another bill," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Stakeholders include trade workers exposed on the job to tiny asbestos fibers and families who have lived near and breathed dust from plants that processed asbestos-tainted material like vermiculite.
Visiting 3M in Maplewood, Minn., last week, President Bush appealed to Congress to act on the measure, a top priority of some of the biggest companies in America. That company has faced more than 400,000 suits alleging defects in its disposable respirators.
"It's time to send a clear message to investors and markets and employees that we've got to have a legal system in regards to asbestos that's fair to those who have actually been harmed, and reasonable for those who need to pay," Bush said.
But on the Senate floor, fights are expected on myriad issues, including the adequacy of the funding and protections for victims whose asbestos exposures were not job-related.
Supporters of the bill include major insurance companies and corporate giants such as General Electric Co., General Motors Corp. and Pfizer, Inc., but fissures have developed between big and small businesses and among insurers; the American Insurance Association recently registered its opposition. Most, but not all labor unions oppose the bill, though the AFL-CIO favors the trust fund concept. Disease victims are divided.
The chief opponent, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America representing attorneys specializing in asbestos litigation, has mounted a multi-pronged effort to kill it.
The massive bill would set a compensation scale for as many as 2 million more workers projected to contract asbestos-related diseases, paying $25,000 to those with mild breathing impairments and $1.1 million to victims of a rare and deadly form of cancer known as mesothelioma.
It also would cover people exposed because a family member brought the deadly dust home on his clothes. And it could wind up covering people if they eventually contract asbestos illnesses as a result of breathing contaminated dust in New York in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, said a Senate aide who has worked on the measure.
Few argue that the current system has been inequitable and less than efficient. The RAND Corp.'s Institute for Civil Justice estimates that 730,000 asbestos-related claims were filed through 2002, costing $70 billion - 60 percent of it going to defense and plaintiffs' attorneys. A sizeable share of the victims' money has gone to claimants with minor lung impairments. RAND also points to 77 corporate bankruptcies stemming from soaring asbestos liabilities, though they include firms that sold asbestos products despite knowing of their potential harm.
Meantime, while many people dying or dead of mesothelioma have won multimillion-dollar court settlements and jury awards, others have collected little or no compensation.
Critics of the bill note that bankrupt drywall industry giant USG Corp. just negotiated an asbestos settlement under which it would pay $900 million to the trust fund over three decades if the bill passes, or $4 billion into its own asbestos trust fund if the measure fails. Backers say those figures distort the true picture, because attorneys' fees represent a big share of the negotiated settlement, and USG's outlays would be offset by insurance recoveries.
A Democratic filibuster in the spring of 2004 killed a proposal for a $124 billion asbestos trust fund.
The latest bill cleared the Judiciary Committee last year by a 13-5 vote. Its chief sponsors, Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel's ranking Democrat, are confident they have enough votes to stop a filibuster attempt expected from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., but are uncertain if they have enough to support to win passage.
Specter and Leahy trumpeted a list of 155 groups supporting the bill last week, including businesses, insurers, victims and military veterans.
But five victims' groups, some with trial lawyers' funding, sent the two senators a letter expressing strong opposition.
Christine Lowery, 52, of New Ulm, Minn., whose husband Frank worked in construction for 30 years and died of mesothelioma two years ago, flew to Washington last week with one of her sons at the behest of her Texas-based lawyers. She said she would visit several senators, to voice her opposition.
Before he died, she said, "I promised my husband I'd fight the companies that made him sick."
But opponents say the bill is nothing more than a "corporate bailout" that would save defendant companies tens of billions of dollars and leave thousands of sick people empty-handed.
Lobbying and shrill rhetoric have intensified on both sides of the controversial proposal with the bill due to come up on the Senate floor beginning this week for as much as two weeks of debate. The measure would take away victims' rights to sue and compensate them over the next 30 years through a $140 billion, privately financed trust fund.
More than 700,000 asbestos victims have filed suits against companies that made or sold such asbestos-containing products as insulation, roofing materials and fire retardant sprays. But much of the awarded in court settlements and jury awards has gone to lawyers' fees and claimants who are not yet seriously ill.
With Republicans fearing they will lose seats in next fall's mid-term elections, some supporters see this as the last, best chance for congressional passage of legislation that has taken years to negotiate among businesses, insurers, labor unions and trial lawyers.
"If this bill goes down, I think there is not going to be another bill," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Stakeholders include trade workers exposed on the job to tiny asbestos fibers and families who have lived near and breathed dust from plants that processed asbestos-tainted material like vermiculite.
Visiting 3M in Maplewood, Minn., last week, President Bush appealed to Congress to act on the measure, a top priority of some of the biggest companies in America. That company has faced more than 400,000 suits alleging defects in its disposable respirators.
"It's time to send a clear message to investors and markets and employees that we've got to have a legal system in regards to asbestos that's fair to those who have actually been harmed, and reasonable for those who need to pay," Bush said.
But on the Senate floor, fights are expected on myriad issues, including the adequacy of the funding and protections for victims whose asbestos exposures were not job-related.
Supporters of the bill include major insurance companies and corporate giants such as General Electric Co., General Motors Corp. and Pfizer, Inc., but fissures have developed between big and small businesses and among insurers; the American Insurance Association recently registered its opposition. Most, but not all labor unions oppose the bill, though the AFL-CIO favors the trust fund concept. Disease victims are divided.
The chief opponent, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America representing attorneys specializing in asbestos litigation, has mounted a multi-pronged effort to kill it.
The massive bill would set a compensation scale for as many as 2 million more workers projected to contract asbestos-related diseases, paying $25,000 to those with mild breathing impairments and $1.1 million to victims of a rare and deadly form of cancer known as mesothelioma.
It also would cover people exposed because a family member brought the deadly dust home on his clothes. And it could wind up covering people if they eventually contract asbestos illnesses as a result of breathing contaminated dust in New York in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, said a Senate aide who has worked on the measure.
Few argue that the current system has been inequitable and less than efficient. The RAND Corp.'s Institute for Civil Justice estimates that 730,000 asbestos-related claims were filed through 2002, costing $70 billion - 60 percent of it going to defense and plaintiffs' attorneys. A sizeable share of the victims' money has gone to claimants with minor lung impairments. RAND also points to 77 corporate bankruptcies stemming from soaring asbestos liabilities, though they include firms that sold asbestos products despite knowing of their potential harm.
Meantime, while many people dying or dead of mesothelioma have won multimillion-dollar court settlements and jury awards, others have collected little or no compensation.
Critics of the bill note that bankrupt drywall industry giant USG Corp. just negotiated an asbestos settlement under which it would pay $900 million to the trust fund over three decades if the bill passes, or $4 billion into its own asbestos trust fund if the measure fails. Backers say those figures distort the true picture, because attorneys' fees represent a big share of the negotiated settlement, and USG's outlays would be offset by insurance recoveries.
A Democratic filibuster in the spring of 2004 killed a proposal for a $124 billion asbestos trust fund.
The latest bill cleared the Judiciary Committee last year by a 13-5 vote. Its chief sponsors, Specter and Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy, the panel's ranking Democrat, are confident they have enough votes to stop a filibuster attempt expected from Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., but are uncertain if they have enough to support to win passage.
Specter and Leahy trumpeted a list of 155 groups supporting the bill last week, including businesses, insurers, victims and military veterans.
But five victims' groups, some with trial lawyers' funding, sent the two senators a letter expressing strong opposition.
Christine Lowery, 52, of New Ulm, Minn., whose husband Frank worked in construction for 30 years and died of mesothelioma two years ago, flew to Washington last week with one of her sons at the behest of her Texas-based lawyers. She said she would visit several senators, to voice her opposition.
Before he died, she said, "I promised my husband I'd fight the companies that made him sick."
posted by Chris Placitella | 9:20 AM
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