theHiredMansWife
Well-known member
Anyone ever seen the "Could you have asbestosis" ads? Silicosis is the latest one...
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244935
All Things Considered, March 6, 2006 · In a packed Texas courtroom last year, a federal judge accused doctors and lawyers of legal and medical fraud.
Silicosis is a deadly lung disease that industrial workers get from inhaling crystalline silica in foundries, mines, quarries and shipyards. Over the last few years, plaintiff lawyers aggressively advertised for silicosis victims, inviting them to mass medical screenings. As a result, state and federal courts were inundated with tens of thousands of silicosis claims.
But the lawsuits hit a major roadblock in Corpus Christi, Texas, when a judge warned a testifying doctor that he might want to get a lawyer before he said anything further. U.S. District Judge Janis Jack ruled that thousands of silicosis claims had been manufactured for money. Her ruling is having an impact on hundreds of thousands of asbestos and silica claims across the country.
A Sudden Avalanche of Litigation
Clean white sand -- the nemesis of golfers, the delight of young children -- goes into paint and glass and a thousand other products you'd both guess and wouldn't. But it can also kill you. Microscopic bits lodge in the most delicate and vulnerable places in your lungs and cause a terrible disease called silicosis. The disease is irreversible and progresses even when exposure stops. Beginning in the 1930s, silicosis cut a nasty gouge out of America's working class. In one notorious case, at least 764 workers died of the disease during the construction of Hawk's Nest Tunnel in West Virginia in the early '30s.
It took half a century, but government regulations eventually began to reduce the incidence of silicosis in the 1970s. So it was quite a surprise to John Ulizio, the CEO of U.S. Silica, when Fed Ex began pulling up to his company's building every day in the winter of 2002.
"The Fed Ex man started to show up with all of these lawsuits," Ulizio recalls. "In November of 2002, and running for a couple months after that date, we were inundated with over 20,000 new claims, by new people, almost all of which were in Mississippi, claiming that they had silicosis."
This was a disaster, maybe the end of U.S. Silica, the largest manufacturer of sand in the country. Were there going to be 20,000 more lawsuits in the next quarter? What in the world was happening in Mississippi?
"We kind of scratched our heads and figured, 'What the heck's going on down there?'" Ulizio says. "We kind of knew, almost as a matter of course, that they weren't real cases. Because, if you look at the federal CDC data on silicosis, there was no indication in the disease prevalence data that there was all of a sudden an epidemic of silicosis."
A Hidden Epidemic or Reaction to Tort Reform?
It was unprecedented. Suddenly, more silicosis cases were filed on single days in Mississippi than had previously been filed in an entire year. If true, it was evidence of one of the worst industrial disasters in American history. Yet no Mississippi public health officials were ever alerted, and no public health warnings ever issued. What was going on? The reason for this sudden legal activity was new tort reform laws that were being drawn up in the U.S. Senate and had already passed in Mississippi. Before the new laws kicked in, plaintiff lawyers rushed to file their cases. In the fertile ground of Mississippi's industrial Gulf Coast, lawyers began advertising for potential silica plaintiffs.
One television ad features a screen with the words "Silica Testing" in large type. Then a list of occupations begins to scroll: sandblasters, industrial painters, shipyard workers, brick masons, plumbers -- 19 different professions that qualified someone as a potential silicosis victim.
Delford Zarse, a plumber in the twilight of his career, says the ads were enough to make him pursue a silicosis claim. "I was talking to some guy who'd done this, and he said he'd collected quite a bit of money, and I see these ads in the paper, so I signed up," he says.
Before there were mass screenings for silicosis, there were mass screenings for asbestosis: That's how it all started. At first, the screenings targeted professions where workers were likely to have been exposed. But then, some plaintiff lawyers began going from town to town, advertising to and screening the general population. Turnout was good and thousands of new claims were generated this way -- including Zarse's claim. He says he's not sick, but he has been a plumber for 40 years. He went to an asbestos screening and was examined by a specially trained doctor hired by the lawyers. A few weeks later, Zarse got a letter: His X-ray had come back positive.
Zarse had 12 claims. Checks sometimes showed up in the mail, minus 40 percent for his lawyer. He got $11,000. Zarse smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and says he almost never gets sick. He has mixed emotions now about his lawsuit. On the one hand, he likes the money he got. "Anybody gives you money for nothing, you're crazy if you don't take it," Zarse says. But his conscience bothers him, too. "I think it's a rip-off of the companies," he says.
((last part of the story here
)
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244935
Last paragraph:
Without question, there are hundreds of industrial workers across the country acutely ill with silicosis. Even the defendants concede that is true. But instead of standing out, their lawsuits float along, jumbled together with thousands of claims generated from mass screenings, clogging court dockets and delaying their opportunity for relief. Time is not on their side.
Judge Jack's methods of deposition and her ruling are beginning to have an impact around the country. In Florida, a judge has ordered silicosis plaintiff lawyers to produce detailed medical information on their claims. In Ohio, a state court handling 35,000 asbestos claims and 900 silica claims is considering calling hearings to depose the doctors the same way Jack did. And on Capital Hill, the House Subcommittee on Commerce and Energy begins its investigation into the Mississippi lawsuits. Like a little legal pebble, the opinion of the nurse who became a federal judge is sending out ripples of change across the nation's court system.
_________________________________________________________
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244935
All Things Considered, March 6, 2006 · In a packed Texas courtroom last year, a federal judge accused doctors and lawyers of legal and medical fraud.
Silicosis is a deadly lung disease that industrial workers get from inhaling crystalline silica in foundries, mines, quarries and shipyards. Over the last few years, plaintiff lawyers aggressively advertised for silicosis victims, inviting them to mass medical screenings. As a result, state and federal courts were inundated with tens of thousands of silicosis claims.
But the lawsuits hit a major roadblock in Corpus Christi, Texas, when a judge warned a testifying doctor that he might want to get a lawyer before he said anything further. U.S. District Judge Janis Jack ruled that thousands of silicosis claims had been manufactured for money. Her ruling is having an impact on hundreds of thousands of asbestos and silica claims across the country.
A Sudden Avalanche of Litigation
Clean white sand -- the nemesis of golfers, the delight of young children -- goes into paint and glass and a thousand other products you'd both guess and wouldn't. But it can also kill you. Microscopic bits lodge in the most delicate and vulnerable places in your lungs and cause a terrible disease called silicosis. The disease is irreversible and progresses even when exposure stops. Beginning in the 1930s, silicosis cut a nasty gouge out of America's working class. In one notorious case, at least 764 workers died of the disease during the construction of Hawk's Nest Tunnel in West Virginia in the early '30s.
It took half a century, but government regulations eventually began to reduce the incidence of silicosis in the 1970s. So it was quite a surprise to John Ulizio, the CEO of U.S. Silica, when Fed Ex began pulling up to his company's building every day in the winter of 2002.
"The Fed Ex man started to show up with all of these lawsuits," Ulizio recalls. "In November of 2002, and running for a couple months after that date, we were inundated with over 20,000 new claims, by new people, almost all of which were in Mississippi, claiming that they had silicosis."
This was a disaster, maybe the end of U.S. Silica, the largest manufacturer of sand in the country. Were there going to be 20,000 more lawsuits in the next quarter? What in the world was happening in Mississippi?
"We kind of scratched our heads and figured, 'What the heck's going on down there?'" Ulizio says. "We kind of knew, almost as a matter of course, that they weren't real cases. Because, if you look at the federal CDC data on silicosis, there was no indication in the disease prevalence data that there was all of a sudden an epidemic of silicosis."
A Hidden Epidemic or Reaction to Tort Reform?
It was unprecedented. Suddenly, more silicosis cases were filed on single days in Mississippi than had previously been filed in an entire year. If true, it was evidence of one of the worst industrial disasters in American history. Yet no Mississippi public health officials were ever alerted, and no public health warnings ever issued. What was going on? The reason for this sudden legal activity was new tort reform laws that were being drawn up in the U.S. Senate and had already passed in Mississippi. Before the new laws kicked in, plaintiff lawyers rushed to file their cases. In the fertile ground of Mississippi's industrial Gulf Coast, lawyers began advertising for potential silica plaintiffs.
One television ad features a screen with the words "Silica Testing" in large type. Then a list of occupations begins to scroll: sandblasters, industrial painters, shipyard workers, brick masons, plumbers -- 19 different professions that qualified someone as a potential silicosis victim.
Delford Zarse, a plumber in the twilight of his career, says the ads were enough to make him pursue a silicosis claim. "I was talking to some guy who'd done this, and he said he'd collected quite a bit of money, and I see these ads in the paper, so I signed up," he says.
Before there were mass screenings for silicosis, there were mass screenings for asbestosis: That's how it all started. At first, the screenings targeted professions where workers were likely to have been exposed. But then, some plaintiff lawyers began going from town to town, advertising to and screening the general population. Turnout was good and thousands of new claims were generated this way -- including Zarse's claim. He says he's not sick, but he has been a plumber for 40 years. He went to an asbestos screening and was examined by a specially trained doctor hired by the lawyers. A few weeks later, Zarse got a letter: His X-ray had come back positive.
Zarse had 12 claims. Checks sometimes showed up in the mail, minus 40 percent for his lawyer. He got $11,000. Zarse smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and says he almost never gets sick. He has mixed emotions now about his lawsuit. On the one hand, he likes the money he got. "Anybody gives you money for nothing, you're crazy if you don't take it," Zarse says. But his conscience bothers him, too. "I think it's a rip-off of the companies," he says.
((last part of the story here
)http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5244935
Last paragraph:
Without question, there are hundreds of industrial workers across the country acutely ill with silicosis. Even the defendants concede that is true. But instead of standing out, their lawsuits float along, jumbled together with thousands of claims generated from mass screenings, clogging court dockets and delaying their opportunity for relief. Time is not on their side.
Judge Jack's methods of deposition and her ruling are beginning to have an impact around the country. In Florida, a judge has ordered silicosis plaintiff lawyers to produce detailed medical information on their claims. In Ohio, a state court handling 35,000 asbestos claims and 900 silica claims is considering calling hearings to depose the doctors the same way Jack did. And on Capital Hill, the House Subcommittee on Commerce and Energy begins its investigation into the Mississippi lawsuits. Like a little legal pebble, the opinion of the nurse who became a federal judge is sending out ripples of change across the nation's court system.