ABA's Support of Asbestos Criteria Sparks Furor ----------------------------------------------- Published February 14, 2003 In a move that outraged some in the legal community, the American Bar Association voted to accept new medical criteria that would eliminate the vast majority of asbestos cases. The ABA, effectively accepting blame for swamping the nation's courts with asbestos claims, will lobby Congress for legislation that embraces the same limits. "We will do that immediately," said ABA President AP Carlton, noting that the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to take up the issue early next month. The proposal wouldn't prevent anyone with cancer caused by asbestos from suing, but addresses the more nebulous area of asbestos-caused pulmonary disease, which can be debilitating and ultimately fatal. Experts have been divided for decades about the criteria that indicate whether someone is suffering from disease caused by asbestos. Different doctors look for different features on X-rays, and they debate whether X-rays alone, or more sophisticated CT scans are the most appropriate way to tell whether there is scarring or thickening of the lining of the lungs consistent with asbestos exposure. However, the vote passed with a 70 percent majority, a big margin that Mr. Carlton said indicated the sense of urgency about reforming a litigation area that has threatened to overwhelm courts and forced more than 60 companies into bankruptcy since 2000. More than 200,000 asbestos cases are now pending nationwide, many involving people who aren't actually sick from asbestos, although they may have been exposed to it in the past. About 600,000 asbestos cases, representing more than $200,000,000,000 in claims, already have been handled by the courts, and an average of 50,000 more are filed each year. Critics, however, said the ABA plan was rammed through and could end up hurting many plaintiffs, including those from Libby, Montana, who do deserve compensation for illness. The new standard, opponents said, excludes many people exposed to tremolite, the type of asbestos found in Libby, as well as talc mines in New York and taconite mines in Minnesota. Thousands more people across the country were exposed to Libby-type asbestos through work in the manufacturing plants that turned vermiculite into insulation and garden additives. In a letter to the ABA, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., urged the group not to make a hasty decision that could affect millions of American exposed to asbestos. "I fear the ABA's Commission on Asbestos Litigation has not adequately considered critical input from important medical, public health and industrial-hygiene experts," she wrote. Labor groups, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and advocates for victims in Libby had mounted a furious campaign to try to get that information into the hands of delegates in the days before the vote. "It was a rotten product derived through a rotten process," said Bob Gorman, Seattle representative of the AFL-CIO. "We'll fight to the end to keep this from getting through Congress." ------------------------------------------------------------------- LitigationDataSource.com