New study shows older workers being exploited by legal system
No doubt the vast majority of financial resources available in various asbestos trust funds will be intended for seniors, who suffer from physical maladies from working with asbestos years ago. After many years of litigation and settlement agreements, billions of dollars are now set for distribution to help pay medical expenses of victims. Or is it?
Once again, when you follow the money you see an aggressive, predatory legal profession seeking to line their pockets at the expense of actual victims who depend on these funds to compensate them for their suffering and assist them through financial hardship caused by their disease. A new report details the suppression of evidence by plaintiff attorneys in their claims against asbestos defendants, exposing a lack of transparency and systemic fraud that dilutes trust funds and robs victims of the compensation they deserve.
In February 2015, discovery data from the Garlock Sealings Technology bankruptcy case for the first time demonstrated the sort of fraud and manipulation that had long been suspected in asbestos cases.
But a new study in Mealey’s Litigation Report took a new look at the Garlock data and finds a similar pattern of “systemic suppression of trust disclosures” in the case of current asbestos defendant Crane Co:
This commentary provides further evidence of the abuse that is being perpetrated on the U.S. civil justice system through the strategic suppression of exposure evidence by plaintiff law firms in asbestos litigation. It is clear from the Garlock discovery data that Garlock, Crane and other tort defendants have been denied constitutional rights to due process. To the extent that judges or other principal players involved in national asbestos litigation remain unconvinced of the magnitude of the abuse, or simply choose to ignore it, the findings revealed by this analysis of the Garlock data should serve as powerful evidence of the urgent need for enhanced transparency and more open interface between the two available sources of payment.
The findings are more bad news for seniors and their families who are rightfully concerned that asbestos trust funds will be depleted by predatory plaintiff attorneys.
Once again we see how a weakness in the legal system can be easily exploited, and how older workers and actual victims are being forced to suffer at the hands of the legal profession instead of being helped as simple justice requires.
