Clamp Down On Silica Suits ATRA Urges Texas
NU Online News Service, Sept. 26, 4:33 p.m. EDT?A business group, working to halt the proliferation of civil lawsuits, filed legal papers today urging the Texas Supreme Court to curb what it said is a potential explosion of lawsuits in that state over silica illness claims.
The arguments by the American Tort Reform Association of Washington, D.C., were made in an amicus curiae (friend of court) brief that was filed with the Coalition for Litigation Justice in the case of U.S. Silica Company v. Tompkins.
ATRA said in its brief that during the past year, silica lawsuit filings have "exploded, with many of these cases brought by the same lawyers and law firms who for years specialized in brining asbestos personal injury lawsuits."
The Association, without identifying the firm involved, said that one large insurance company is handling more than 25,000 silica claims in 28 states–"a tenfold increase from August 2002."
ATRA urged the court to avoid the avalanche of lawsuits that has developed over asbestos claims, which it said had been sparked by courts "lowering the legal barriers and moving the cases along quickly" in the hope such cases would disappear. Instead, ATRA, this action by the courts has "attracted more and more plaintiffs, with weaker claims."
ATRA President Sherman Joyce said, "Plaintiffs' attorneys who have made a fortune on asbestos litigation are now applying the same strategy to silica. We've already seen the economic devastation of asbestos litigation, and this court can curb silica litigation now before it reaches similar crisis proportions," said "By applying sound legal principles to guide Texas courts in managing silica litigation, the crisis can be avoided altogether."
Claims against U.S. Silica, a leading producer of silica sand, have gone up three-fold since last year, and the company now faces 22,000 claims, ATRA said.
The Association noted that the Coalition now reports silica claims against one national insurance company have gone up 12-fold in the last year, with the company now facing 30,000 claims. Ninety-one percent of those claims, ATRA said, were filed in Mississippi and Texas–in jurisdictions that it identifies as "judicial hellholes" because cases are routinely decided in favor of plaintiffs and the law is often not fairly and impartially applied.
ATRA said there is no medical crisis to justify the growth of silica litigation.
According to ATRA: "While the number of silica lawsuits is rising, the annual number of U.S. silica deaths has dropped nearly 84 percent in the past 35 years–from 1,157 deaths in 1968 to 187 deaths in 1999. (National Institute of Occupational Safety & Health). To put these numbers into perspective, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that on average, 400 people in the United States die each year from extreme heat."
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