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Legitimate Actions May Now be Distinguished from Specious Claims

The difficulty lies in the question of what the legislature can and should do to attempt limiting asbestos and silica lawsuits, and this question has been raised in the state affairs committee hearing. 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. The issue here is business groups claiming personal injury lawyers, referred to as greed oriented trial lawyers, are taking advantage of victims with the aid of doctors who are willing to do numerous X-ray readings. They also say businesses are using huge amounts of money to defend themselves against fake claims.

There are personal injury lawyers who represent injured workers who don't want there to be any legislative action affecting their practices, especially when there are now laws on the books sending all the asbestos cases in a state to just one judge. And these personal injury lawyers will often try to push through a case regardless of whether or not that case actually holds any water, taking advantage of a new generation of people who are determined to make money from claims of silica exposure.

Businesses claim that serious claims can be sifted from fraudulent ones by demanding that claimants prove the effects of their asbestos exposure, instead of just showing their problems with an X ray. The bill would modify the bar association's proposal to require claimants to meet with detailed medical standards, including having X rays taken, breathing tests done, and a thorough exam by a doctor before they could go forward with a lawsuit.

The legislation would incorporate a pair of safeguards for those who can claim asbestos exposure, but have yet to suffer physical manifestations. First, it removes the past limitations of two year. 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 bill would also prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to that worker regardless of whether medical tests reveal asbestos exposure.

There are safeguards out there to keep people from doing this, but some critics believe that medical standards are too difficult and inflexible to meet. This new proposal would mean keeping the medical standards at their current level, and allowing workers to sue, but also allowing for a judge to refer the claim elsewhere to discuss its validity ahead of time. The effort is in trying to weed out cases which are truly fraudulent, while also safeguarding the rights of workers who have been exposed.

As one House member pointed out, if the doctors performing the tests are in fact lying, as some advocates claim, then raising the medical standards won't change anything. If you raise the medical standard, that doesn't stop unethical physicians from simply lying to higher standard. Regardless of the motives of the involved parties, the government needs to get the fake claims out of the courts. Those workers who really do have good suits should be helped quickly. Although the members of the house proposed this amendment, this will only effect the bill in the house and not the senate as well.

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