subject: Companies are Required to Use Too Many Resources Responding to Questionable Litigation [print this page] Companies are Required to Use Too Many Resources Responding to Questionable Litigation
The state affairs committee faced the daunting question of what the legislature should or can do regarding lawsuits due to injury sustained from silica and asbestos. The answer to the asbestos problem may lay in the hands of a freshman house member, and medical doctor, who has authored a new senate bill that will hopefully be able to take care of the many difficulties business face when it comes to fraudulent claims. Business groups contest that many of the victims in these cases are being taken advantage of by personal injury lawyers and their questionable doctor cohorts that create false cases from questionable medical data. They also believe that businesses are being stressed too much by the costs of trying to defend themselves from fraudulent claims.
There have been some shifts in tort law, which legislate that only one judge in the entire state will hear any new case regarding asbestos. Thus, many personal injury attorneys claim there is no need for any laws limiting cases since this tort will clear this up. However, there seems to be a new wave of silica exposure claims surfacing due to some of the lawyers handling personal injury complaints that have been pushing through claims which are definitely questionable.
Business lobbyists counter that there is a simple measure to resolve this. If we simply ask that anyone filing a lawsuit must demonstrate suffering and injury from their exposure prior to wasting the court's time, this will fix the problem. We need proof beyond a simple x ray, which can be exaggerated by unethical doctors. The bill on the table would ask claimants to undergo x rays, but also breathing tests and an exam by a physician prior to being able to move forward with a lawsuit. This is a modification to a proposal by the bar association.
This bill would also allow workers who were exposed, but have yet to show symptoms, some new protections. The first one would be the removal of the two year statute of limitations. The existence of this limitation sometimes forces people to fill prematurely. So if you have been exposed but the necessary symptoms develop well after the two year period, you will still be able to sue, no matter how many years have gone by. The second measure of protection is that insurance companies would no longer be able to deny coverage to any worker who had been exposed to asbestos.
Safeguards like this are important, but the response from critics claim the standards are overly stringent and inflexible. The current medical standards enabling a suit would remain in the new proposal. However, the judge would refer the claim in order to determine merit. Without that, there would be no suit. Under this proposal, workers would still have the same rights as before but the court would be able to separate out those claims that are baseless or fraudulent.
Raising medical standards won't solve the problem if doctors are lying, according to the house member. These same doctors would just say whatever needed to be said to keep the case in court. The state must find a way to reduce claims that do nothing more than waste the court's time so that justice can be meted out more quickly to those who truly need the court's aid. Employees who've been exposed and who have a real claim should get relief as soon as possible. Though the current bill is only before the House, the bill's drafter believes that it should be taken up by the Senate as well.
