Asbestos Reform Bill Passes Texas Senate

By Steve Tuckey

NU Online News Service, April 28, 4:10 p.m.EDT?The Texas Senate unanimously approved a comprehensiveasbestos and silica lawsuit reform bill yesterday that theproperty-casualty insurance industry had lobbied for.[@@]

Sen. Kyle Janek, R-Galveston, called the measure, which now goesto the Texas House of Representatives, the result of "ten years ofsearching for a balanced and bipartisan solution to the increasingnumber of asbestos lawsuits clogging the state's courts."

"It is going to protect those workers that have been impaired,and we are going to protect those workers who have been exposed buthave not yet been impaired," Sen. Janek continued.

According to Sen. Janek, SB 15 would eliminate the statute oflimitations, allowing anyone who is exposed to asbestos or silicathe right to sue when and if an actual illness develops. Anotherbill provision requires claimants to demonstrate actual impairmentbefore filing a claim.

"This is an effort to reduce the backlog of asbestos and silicalawsuits filling the Texas courts," Sen. Janek said.

"Texas is taking an important step forward in achievingmeaningful asbestos litigation reform," said Joe Woods, southwestregional manager for the Des Plaines, Ill.-based Property CasualtyInsurers Association of America (PCI).

Robert Detlefsen, public policy director for theIndianapolis-based National Association of Mutual InsuranceCompanies, said the legislation will help prevent Texas businessmenfrom "frivolous lawsuits."

The measure also requires that each asbestos case be tried onits own merits, and not as part of a "bundle" of claims that mayinclude a few truly sick claimants and dozens of unimpairedclaimants. "This change will also assure that compensation thatshould go to the truly sick is not diverted to pay claimants withno asbestos or silica-related illness," Mr. Detlefsen said.

The legislation also shuts down the so-called "mass screening"of potential asbestos and silica claimants that have resulted intens of thousands of unimpaired asbestos claims in the courts, headded.

The bill will face a hearing before the House Civil PracticesCommittee next week. "The House has always been more pro-triallawyer, so it faces a more difficult path," Mr. Woods said. "But inthe end we expected to pass."

Both chambers are Republican-controlled.

GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who made the legislation one of his toppriorities in his State of the State address earlier this year, isexpected to sign the bill, Mr. Woods said.