Victim's Family Opposes Asbestos Bill

A bill that changes how victims of asbestos are compensated will soon be voted on in the U.S. Senate, but one local family is already saying "no."
The Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act would ban asbestos victims and their families from suing companies that manufactured asbestos. Instead, they would be compensated from a national trust fund.
Supporters of the bill say the system would get money to victims quicker and cut down on the high legal expenses of the current system.
But not everyone believes the new system would be the best way, and they're worried about losing their rights.
It's been less than a year since Ellen Greene's father passed away. "My dad, Frank Beesaw, was a World War Two veteran, a Marine. He was very proud of that. He served in the South Pacific."
"He had family that loved him. everybody loved 'Uncle Frank,'" his daughter said.
He died at the of 79 from asbestos exposure. Three months before his death he was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos, something he was exposed to during his many years of working at a paper mill.
"He survived four years at war under hostile fire, and came home to be poisoned by going to work in his own country," Greene said.
Now she and her family are fighting the federal bill that would change how victims of asbestos are compensated. "This bill takes away our right to pursue legal action," action she says is about more than just the money.
"It minimizes my father as an individual, and it allows them to make an anonymous, write an anonymous check to a fund."
"I want to be able to face them on behalf of my father and say this was wrong."
The bill's sponsors say they will bring it to the Senate floor sometime next week, and if it passes it will go to President Bush's desk.

Asbestos victims oppose trust-fund plan

Several local asbestos victims and their families are urging senators to vote this week against a proposed federal asbestos trust fund, which they describe as a corporate bailout that would leave victims without help.
Debate on the legislation is set to begin Monday. The bill would remove damage claims of workers and others injured by exposure to asbestos from the courts, sending them instead to a privately financed $140 billion trust fund for adjudication and payment.
"It's a misguided idea. There are no provisions at this time who would pay into the fund and how the payouts would happen," said Ellen Greene of De Pere, whose father, Frank Besaw, a Green Bay paper mill worker, died last year of a cancer linked to asbestos exposure.
She met last week with representatives of Democratic Sens. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.
If Senate bill 852 passes, compensation claims would have to start all over, Greene said.
"Compensation is only part of the issue. I think we deserve our day in court to hold people accountable for their actions," Greene said.
Gary Allen, director of the Northeast Wisconsin Building and Construction Trades, and a former asbestos worker, urged Kohl to vote against the bill.
Allen said he could attest to the unfairness of trying to get compensation for an asbestos injury through large group programs.
Years ago Allen signed on to a group program with a legal firm that was supposed to litigate claims.
"The only one that was fairly compensated was the legal firm," Allen said in a letter to Kohl.
The bill calls for nine levels of compensation, depending on the seriousness of a claimant's condition. Payments would range from $25,000 for breathing impairment to $1.1 million for mesothelioma victims. Medical monitoring is provided for people who have been exposed to asbestos but show no symptoms.
Besaw, an employee at Northern Paper Mills in Green Bay, from 1946 to 1968 and at James River in Oregon from 1968 to 1987, worked with asbestos insulation used to cover the paper machines, turbines, and pipes. He also handled asbestos blocks and cements. He died at 79 of mesothelioma.
Wisconsin Citizen Action, which became involved through organized labor unions, also opposed the bill.
The bill also has been attacked by insurers and some of the businesses that would be compelled to pay for the trust, which argue that the funding burden is unfairly distributed and that the bill does not assure closure of the issue, The Washington Post reported.