Additional Asbestos Lawsuit Data
- Asbestos is "the big one" of American mass toxic tort litigation.
- Asbestos litigation began in the United States in the late 1960s
- For cases that go to trial, the mean award in 2001 was $ 6 million, triple the amount two years earlier, according to a study by think tank Rand Corp.
- Over roughly two decades of asbestos litigation through 2002, Rand says, mesothelioma cases represented about 4 percent of asbestos-related cases but 20 percent of all cash paid out in asbestos-related claims.
- Filing rates reached 100,000 claims per year or more, verdicts regularly set records, and scores of asbestos defendants sought protection under the bankruptcy laws
- The Fifth Circuit's 1973 decision in Borel v. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. established that manufacturers could be strictly liable under § 402A of the Restatement for failure to provide a warning to people who might be injured by their products
- From approximately 1987 through 1994, the average number of claims filed each year during this period was 29,042, and the median was significantly lower, at 25,496. Filings in 1995, however, jumped to 48,213 and continued at a high rate through 2002. The average number of new filings per year was 53,007 during this period, and *549 the median was 48,118.
- Prior to 1988, Texas's share of the asbestos claims was 3%, which increased to 15% for the subsequent five-year period. Between 1993 and 1997, 44% of all asbestos claims were filed in Texas.
- In the mid-1990s, three Texas counties--Harris (Houston), Jefferson (Beaumont), and Galveston--accounted for more than 25% of all new state court filings in the entire country.
Litigation through the year 2000:
Asbestos Litigation Costs and Compensation: An Interim Report
Book by Allan Abrahamse, Scott Ashwood, Stephen J. Carroll, Jennifer Gross, Deborah Hensler, Elizabeth Sloss, Michelle White; Rand Institute for Civil Justice, 2002. 99 pgs.
Claiming behavior:
• Over 600,000 people have filed claims, typically against dozens of defendants, forasbestos-related personal injuries through the end of 2000.
• Annual filings have risen sharply in the last few years.
• Increasing claims for nonmalignant injuries explain the recent growth in the asbestos caseload.
• The number of mesothelioma cases filed annually has been rising slowly over this period, but they represent a tiny fraction of all claims.
• Although available claims data do not distinguish consistently among different kinds of nonmalignant claims, there is widespread agreement that a majority of the claimants without cancer are functionally unimpaired, meaning that their asbestos exposure has not so far affected their ability to perform activities of daily life.
• Cases migrated to different states and venues in the late 1990s. Five states—Mississippi, New York, West Virginia, Ohio, and Texas—which accounted for only 9 percent of the cases filed before 1988 handled 66 percent of filings between 1998 and 2000.
Defendants:
• Over 6,000 companies have been named as defendants.
• The litigation has spread far beyond the asbestos and building products industries. The list of defendants now ranges across 75 out of 83 different types of industries in the U.S. Although only a few firms are involved in certain industries, the litigation has spread to touch almost every type of economic activity in the U.S.
• Bankruptcies are becoming more frequent: a total of 16 bankruptcies were filed in the 1980s, 18 in the 1990s, and 22 between January 2000 and Spring 2002.
Compensation and Costs:
• A total of $54 billion has already been spent on asbestos litigation.
• Transaction costs have consumed more than half of total spending.
• About 65 percent of compensation has gone to nonmalignant claimants.
• Compensation for mesothelioma claims has risen sharply since 1993.
• Estimates of the number of people who will file claims in the future—and the costs of those claims—vary widely, but they are all extremely high. All accounts agree that, at best, only about half the final number of claimants have come forward. At worst, only one-fifth of all claimants have filed claims to date. Estimates of the total costs of all claims range from $200 to $265 billion.