Lawyers On Trial

From IBD:

Posted 3/9/2006

The Law: Not long ago it appeared that silica would become the next asbestos — a cudgel that trial lawyers could use to shake down deep-pocket companies. But folks who can do something about it have wised up.

Silica is a purified sand that's used as a cleaning abrasive in sandblasting. It's found in foundries, mines, quarries and shipyards and is used extensively in glass making. When this crystalline dust is inhaled, it can cause silicosis — a serious lung disease that has killed many, including — as National Public Radio reports — nearly 800 who worked on the Hawk's Nest Tunnel in West Virginia in the early 1930s.

While silicosis is a legitimate health threat, incidences of the disease have fallen since protections were put in place in the 1970s.Well, at least they'd fallen until trial lawyers saw silicosis as a PIN to big companies' ATM accounts.

A few years ago, the lawyers signed up tens of thousands of "victims" for class-action lawsuits — picking up along the way some plaintiffs who had also filed claims as victims of asbestos. U.S. Silica, the country's largest sand maker, was flooded by more than 20,000 lawsuits in a short period that began in November 2002.

Others also got hit.

But some judges, notaly Clinton appointee Janis Jack of the Federal District Court in Corpus Christi, Texas, aren't letting the trial lawyers run freely with silicosis as they did with asbestosis. Lawsuits on behalf of people diagnosed with asbestosis (which isn't always the same thing as actually having it) have made some lawyers rich, left plaintiffs with just a few dollars and bankrupted an estimated 70 companies. Overall cost to the economy: $70 billion.

It was last year, while presiding over a silicosis case, that Jack stood athwart trial lawyer history and shouted, "Whoa." When she learned that nearly two-thirds of the plaintiffs had also filed asbestos claims, the former nurse became skeptical. She knew it would be rare, though not impossible, for a person to have both.

In a 250-page ruling, Jack bluntly said the 10,000 claims of silicosis before her were part of a "scheme" that was "manufactured for money." Since then, more than half of those 10,000 claims have been pitched out of court or voluntarily pulled by trial lawyers — a tacit admission, we'd say, that the claims were bogus to begin with.

Some doctors' shameful willingness to make questionable diagnoses of silicosis to fill up class-action lawsuits has caught the attention of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On Wednesday, the panel invited a few physicians in for a chat. Two were forced to testify by subpoena, and all three took the Fifth. The committee is also taking a look at some of the lawyers involved.

Meanwhile, corporate victims in two phony silicosis suits are justifiably seeking $330,000 in sanctions from a Texas law firm, alleging that it filed "baseless" and "frivolous" claims.

We're not saying true victims of silicosis shouldn't be compensated. They should. But it's inspiring to see that there are judges who are determined to weed out any fraud. As with asbestos, it's never too late to keep trial lawyers honest.