Let's Make An Asbestos Deal, Sen. Specter Pleads

By Arthur D. Postal, Washington Bureau Chief

NU Online News Service, Jan. 11, 3:24 p.m. EST, Washington?The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee implored stakeholders in the long-running asbestos claim litigation issue to come together quickly on legislation that brings closure to everyone.[@@]

"This may well be the last, best chance to deal with this issue in the foreseeable future," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said during a three-hour hearing.

Sen. Specter, trying again to push the interested parties?including insurers, defendant companies, organized labor and plaintiffs?to work out their differences, said he hopes to have a bill introduced in the Senate by early February.

The scope of Sen. Specter's task was described by Craig Berrington, senior vice president and general counsel of the American Insurance Association, which testified on behalf of the industry. Insurers are wary of proposed solutions that essentially are "designed to fail," Mr. Berrington said.

Mr. Berrington also articulated the industry's newly-disclosed position that the trust fund concept for injured workers, embraced by Sen. Specter and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, the ranking minority member of the panel, won't work.

"The last thing that a national trust fund should do is to allow asbestos litigation to continue after the bill is signed into law, or be constructed in a way that ever allows a return to the same litigation system that has created the problem in the first place," Mr. Berrington testified.

He added, "AIA could only support a trust fund construct if that fund became the exclusive remedy for all asbestos claims. Without including all claims, there is no finality, and the way some of the medical criteria and awards structure are constructed, insurers are concerned that a fund is ?made to fail.'"

Mr. Specter also announced support for the first time for the $140 billion fund figure that Sens. William Frist, R-Tenn., and Tom Daschle, D-S.D., in effect agreed upon last fall during on-again, off-again talks. Mr. Daschle was later defeated for reelection. Mr. Specter said at the hearing that the previous agreement on $140 billion "makes that figure entitled to weight."

John Engler, former Michigan governor and now president of the National Association of Manufacturers, supported during his testimony the $140 billion trust fund cap.

Mr. Engler said the bill should also "completely shut down the broken asbestos tort system," supporting the insurance industry's argument that the current draft of Mr. Specter's legislation raised the potential for allowing some asbestos claims to wind up back in the courts.

Mr. Engler also raised an issue of concern to insurers?one first raised in 2003?that the draft bill would allow some asbestos claims to be re-litigated as claims for injury from silica.

"We believe that the bill must contain stronger provisions to lock the back door so trial lawyers don't just convert tens of thousands of unimpaired asbestos claims into silica claims," Mr. Engler said.

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Let's Make An Asbestos Deal, Sen. Specter Pleads

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