Asbestos Fraud and Abuse
How It Works
Believable claims?
One study of 850,000 lawsuit and trust filings found more than 2,000 claims asserting industrial exposure on the job, but for time periods when the claimants would have been under 12 years old. Hundreds more claims gave contradictory information about the injury incurred. (Wall Street Journal, 3/11/13)
Circle of friends
During a typical asbestos bankruptcy case, the leading plaintiffs’ lawyers will enjoy “largely unchecked control over key settlement terms and the selection of critical players in the process, including the appointment of the future claimants’ legal representative and certain of the debtors’ counsel.” (Testimony of SUNY Buffalo law professor S. Todd Brown, 2012)
Sadly, attorneys filing specious asbestos claims are rapidly drawing down the resources for future legitimate claimants who deserve compensation. Asbestos plaintiff lawyers get rich filing these claims and taking one third or more of payouts for themselves. They then perpetuate this cycle, channeling some of their wealth into advertising to hunt for more claims to file, and currying favor with judges and lawmakers to help ensure the system is not reformed. For example, Texas asbestos firm Provost Umphrey donated $15,000 to the re-election campaign of Beaumont Judge Donald Floyd who presides over many of the firm's lawsuits (SE Texas Record, 10/16/14).
Following the money
Because lawsuits can be more profitable than trust claims for asbestos lawyers, injury claims often point to products of solvent companies. In a 2014 ruling in the Garlock case, Judge George Hodges confirmed the observation that when certain defendants went bankrupt, “evidence of exposure to their products disappeared.”
Fraudulent claims in the quest for legal fees could put asbestos victims at risk for perjury (S. Warner, Huffington Post, 4/28/14).
Ginning up exposure claims
An analysis of some 13,000 claims filed by asbestos lawyer Peter Angelos found that more than one in 10 were duplicates, and nearly 70 percent were diagnosed by the same five doctors. One of them worked for Angelos and diagnosed about half of them, including 77 diagnoses in one day. (Wall Street Journal, 4/10/13)
Today, asbestos trust claims are increasingly based on lung cancer, about 90 percent of which is attributable to smoking (Alberg & Samet, 2003). This rise is not attributable to medicine or science, but rather to the lawyer profit motives around asbestos trust filing procedures (Scarcella, et al., 2013).
The minimal or absent validation of trust claims creates the feeding frenzy
“Because of plaintiffs’ counsel’s control over the drafting of the provisions setting forth the criteria for payment and the extremely lax standards they have adopted… actual claims filed with the trusts have substantially exceeded the projected numbers.” (Cardozo law professor Lester Brickman, 2014)
Unpunished abuse
“[G]iven the secrecy of trust operations today, it is implausible that even a representative who is grossly negligent or actively colludes with counsel to loot the trust will be discovered and held accountable.” (Brown, 2012)
Getting richer and richer
Asbestos plaintiff lawyer Peter Angelos took in over $100 million in one asbestos lawsuit in 1992 (Baltimore City Paper, 8/16/00) and, as of 2013, had 13,000 claims pending (Wall Street Journal, 4/10/13).
