Dubious Asbestos Lawsuits

Cancer (Mesothelioma, Asbestosis etc.)

Interesting article in the St. Louis Post Dispatch which reports Lester Brickman, law professor and legal ethicist, saying that many asbestos suits are fraudulent.

A leading critic of asbestos litigation contends that the mass medical screenings that lead to asbestos-related injury claims in Madison County and other courts nationwide constitute fraud on a massive scale.

Lester Brickman, a law professor and legal ethicist who has studied the circuit court in Madison County for years, makes the claims in a study to be published this month in the law review of Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif.

Brickman contends that plaintiffs' attorneys have colluded with some screening companies and the doctors who work with them to skew readings to obtain diagnoses of asbestosis, a nonmalignant lung ailment that can cause shortness of breath.

Posted by Paul at January 18, 2004 06:17 PM |

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Well this Brickman guy seems to be pretty corporation-friendly. As the plaintiffs' attorney said, if the defense thought a test was done fraudulently or even poorly, that is something she could bring up in trial to weaken the plaintiffs' case.

Brickman's contention, that attorney-sponsored asbestos screenings produce so many thousands of suits that they "force defendants to pay the claims by effectively precluding them from meaningfully opposing them," is ridiculous. These defendants are huge, multi-national corporations. Many of them have special units or law firms on retainer to deal with asbestos claims. It's expenseive for them yes, but they are hardly being kept from meaningfully opposing claims.

Also, the expense isn't much when you think about the fact that these companies knew that asbestos was deadly for 40 years before they started trying to protect workers from it...

Posted by: Caitlin at January 22, 2004 10:36 PM
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