Asbestos bill best for victims, too

Present system an open-ended fiasco

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

The political advertising cycle never hibernates. Witness the dueling campaigns trying to sway senators' votes on asbestos litigation reform.

In the cross-hairs: Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, one of a handful of lawmakers who hasn't announced his stance on S. 852, a bill that would establish an industry-financed trust fund to disburse payments to Americans sickened by exposure to asbestos. (Colorado's other senator, Wayne Allard, backs the bill.)

Though cancer rates from asbestos exposure have plummeted for more than a decade, nearly 100,000 new claims were filed last year - many from plaintiffs who can show no impairments from asbestos. Asbestos litigation has cost U.S. companies more than $275 billion, by some accounts, and cast more than 80 businesses into bankruptcy.

Campaigns underwritten by unions and the plaintiffs' bar are duking it out with corporate-funded ad buys before debate opens on the bill Monday.

While S. 852 is far from perfect, it would mark a major improvement that would ensure prompter settlements to patients, and direct money to sick people and not their lawyers.

That's not what you'll hear in the ads opposing S. 852. One deems the bill a corporate bailout. Another campaign run by the Senate Accountability Project, founded by a Texas asbestos litigator, claims the bill would "abolish your right to hold the guilty fully accountable."

Nonsense. The bill would terminate active asbestos lawsuits and set up a $140-billion trust fund, financed by asbestos companies and insurance carriers and run by an administrator housed in the U.S. Department of Labor.

Anyone who has an asbestos claim or lawsuit would have five years to file with the trust fund. Payments would go only to those who can prove exposure to asbestos and show (after medical screening) they have an asbestos-related illness. The sickest people would get the highest payouts. If the fund runs out of money, then litigants can return to court.

Patients should receive settlements within months rather than years. Businesses would escape open-ended litigation. And attorneys could pocket no more than 5 percent of the claim in legal fees.

That, of course, explains the trial lawyers' howls. Under the current system, lawyers have banked up to 48 percent of some asbestos payouts.

Even so, S. 852 has room to improve. We would prefer the trust fund be a special court that is insulated from political pressure. The bill should also tighten the standards for filing claims regarding smokers who worked near asbestos.

With those fixes, we could endorse S. 852 without hesitation. It would both alleviate a needless drag on productivity and bring justice to the truly ill.