|
 |
|
|
|
Asbestos Victims Are Dying as Healthy People Clog the Courts |
|
|
|
Written On: October 25, 2002 |
|
|
|
Imagine this: A mugger stabs you in the chest, but when you’re rushed to the hospital emergency room, you have to wait while the lady ahead of you gets treated for a hangnail.
You die waiting.
That’s what’s happening to countless asbestos victims across the country since a Louisiana court ruled that plaintiffs don’t need to show they were injured by asbestos in order to sue – only that they were exposed to it.
Not surprisingly, that decision unleashed a flood of lawsuits by healthy people seeking damages for asbestos exposure. In the meantime, real asbestos victims are shunted to the side to wait their turn in court.
Many of them die waiting.
Dale Dahlke was one of them. Dahlke, who worked at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, suffered from mesothelioma, a rare type of cancer linked to asbestos. But he died in May before his case made it through the courts – before he knew whether his family would be taken care of. His widow, Charisse, is now appearing in a series of television spots asking Congress to change the way asbestos cases are handled.
Matthew Bergman, the Dahlke family attorney, says “Eighty percent of the asbestos cases in the courts today are filed by healthy people who are not sick and probably won’t get sick. They drain resources from the real victims.”
In Dale Dahlke’s case, eight out of the ten firms that might have paid compensation are now bankrupt. They’re not around to provide jobs, pay taxes, or compensate Dahlke’s widow and children.
There is a better way.
Many years ago, Congress passed legislation to make it easier for miners who contracted silicosis or “black lung disease” to get compensation. Nobody sued, there were no long delays, victims needed only to document their case to receive compensation.
One of the people who took advantage of that program was my father-in-law, who contracted a form of black lung disease from 44 years working in the underground copper mines in Butte, Montana. He lost one lung to the disease but did not need to go to court for relief. To this day, that compensation is still being paid as part of my mother-in-law’s pension.
It’s time to take out the middleman. People who need compensation should not have to go to court to get it, and people who aren’t sick shouldn’t get in the way of those who are.
“But without hefty punitive damages,” some personal injury lawyers might say, “some companies would victimize their workers and consider medical bills a cost of doing business.” If that’s the case, then government regulators aren’t doing their jobs. Companies who cavalierly risk the lives of their employees should face criminal charges, not punitive damages.
It’s time to reform the system. We owe it to Dale Dahlke and the others who have mesothelioma.
|
|
|
|
