Mesothelioma Attorneys
Senate Panel Agrees to Increase Size of Asbestos Trust
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Senators agreed yesterday to increase to as much as $153 billion a proposed trust fund that would end all asbestos lawsuits and instead pay asbestos victims from a set schedule based on their diseases. The agreement, for an additional $45 billion in financing, could help win support from Democratic lawmakers, increasing the likelihood that the trust will become law. But a major obstacle to the creation of the trust remained last night, as senators continued to disagree over the size of payments to victims. Democrats have said that the payments proposed in the legislation are inadequate and are less than people with asbestos-related diseases now receive in the courts. Democratic and union support for a bill is crucial, as both business and labor groups agree that the proposed trust is unlikely to become law without bipartisan support. Michael Baroody, executive vice president of the National Association of Manufacturers, which favors a trust or other measures to make asbestos lawsuits more difficult, said the two sides were far apart on payments. But Mr. Baroody said that senators had reached compromises on two other major hurdles, medical criteria for how victims will be paid and a way to guarantee that the trust will not run out of money. ‘’I certainly wouldn’t rule out the prospect of an agreement,'’ Mr. Baroody said. The trust would be administered by the federal government and would take the place of suits in state and federal courts by people who contend they have asbestos-related diseases. A flood of asbestos lawsuits, more than 200,000 in the last two years alone, has strained the court system and bankrupted more than 60 companies, some of them only peripherally related to asbestos manufacturing. More : query.nytimes.com |
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