Courts Can Not Afford To Be Hearing Every Case If The Fraudulent Claims Keep Increasing

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 may come from a freshman house member, who happens to be a medical doctor, who’s authored a senate bill that businesses are in favor because it concerns the myriads of claims currently clogging the courts that are questionable. Corporate associations complain that tort attorneys routinely take advantage of potential plaintiffs, in conjunction with medical professionals willing to lend support to their questionable claims. It is also argued that companies are forced to expend far too many resources on the defense of specious allegations.

Many personal injury lawyers out there think that there’s no reason to go about changing the law, especially since some of the laws regarding asbestos exposure weight heavily in their favor. For example, in some states all of the asbestos cases must be seen by one particular 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.

Companies have asserted that true injuries could be distinguished from meritless claims by forcing plaintiffs to demonstrate substantive damage resulting from asbestos contact, and not just produce an x-ray image. This would mean the bill being proposed would have to adopt, and modify, the bar’s recommendation that state a claimant meet specific medical standards before they would be allowed to proceed with their lawsuit, including a breathing test, X-rays, and exam by a doctor.

In addition, this bill would offer a couple specific protections to workers who know they were exposed but haven’t yet proven there was damage done. One measure is that the typical two year statute of limitations is not applicable. A worker prevented from opening a claim who experiences severe symptoms would still be able to file a lawsuit regardless of time passed. Second, this legislation would prohibit insurers from refusing to cover laborers whose physical examinations indicated dangerous asbestos exposure.

Although these are both positive changes, the opponents to this bill say that the medical standards a worker would have to pass are far to stringent. The current medical standards enabling a suit would remain in the new proposal. However, the judge would refer the claim in order to determine merit. Without that, there would be no suit. This would then remove the fraudulent claims and keep the rights of workers.

Raising medical standards won’t solve the problem if doctors are lying, according to the house member. 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. Workers who have a real, true claim should be able to have their claims processed as soon as possible. This bill, which has been submitted in the house, should be heard by the senate, according to the bill’s sponsor.

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