The Smoking [Democrite] Congresswoman and Her Asbestos Lawsuit

By Paul M. Barrett November 11, 2013


It’s not that I’m against all lawsuits. It’s just that the plaintiffs’ lawyers—and the judges who enable them—take things too far. So even a politically moderate, law school-educated guy like me, someone who’s perfectly prepared to root for a suit against a dishonest insurance company or an exploitative landlord, finds himself increasingly dismayed by the uses to which our civil justice system is put.

This morning let’s consider the strange case of Representative Carolyn McCarthy of New York.

Sadly, McCarthy has lung cancer. The 69-year-old Democrat from Long Island took a leave from Congress in June to seek treatment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. I wish her the best, of course; lung cancer is a tough one.

McCarthy has decided to cash in on her unfortunate plight by putting herself in the hands of Weitz & Luxenberg. The New York law firm specializes in suing former manufacturers of products containing asbestos, a carcinogenic insulation material. Weitz & Luxenberg has filed suit on McCarthy’s behalf against more than 40 companies, alleging their actions contributed to her often-fatal disease. The suit, reported over the weekend by the New York Post, claims that McCarthy’s exposure as a child to asbestos helped make her sick. She never worked for the defendant companies, which include Goodyear Tire & Rubber (GT), the Con Edison utility, and Pfizer (PFE). Instead, the suit alleges she was exposed to trace amounts of asbestos because her father and brothers worked as boilermakers in U.S. Navy yards and power plants.

The papers filed by Weitz & Luxenberg omit a relevant detail: McCarthy has smoked for some 40 years. “McCarthy is such an avid smoker,” according to the Post, “that she’s known around Capitol Hill for taking [cigarette] breaks between votes.”

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-11-11/smoker-carolyn-mccarthy-should-withdraw-her-asbestos-related-lawsuit

Mesothelioma is tied to asbestos poisoning not cigarettes. If she has Mesothelioma - well it is from Asbestos and not from cigarettes.

The GOP science denial party has fought to protect companies that produced cancer causing Asbestos and to protect companies that manufacture cancer causing cigarettes from ever being sued for their products that have killed millions - all while driving up our health care costs.

The GOP has also fought to protect insurance companies from having to provide health insurance coverage to the people affected by Asbestos and smoking-related lung, oral, esophageal, and stomach cancers. Same for smokeless tobacco cancer victims.

One of the GOP's funniest attacks is to blame the victims. For example, see the OP's original post. He blames her for smoking. But for decades the GOP hid behind bogus scientific studies assuring the American people that smoking does not cause cancer and that cigarettes were safe - even for pregnant women. They fought against banning cigarette ads on TV. They fought against the FDA regulating and labeling cigarettes as carcinogenic.

The GOP is cancer's best friend.

The GOP's new major denial campaign is Global Warming and Climate change. Ha!

NAWT Wrote:
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> Mesothelioma is tied to asbestos poisoning not
> cigarettes. If she has Mesothelioma - well it is
> from Asbestos and not from cigarettes.
>
> more bullshit...


Where's it say that she has mesothelioma?

Guess that after voting for 0bamaCare she finally read it and found out what's really in it!

The Asbestos Scam

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/03/opinion/nocera-the-asbestos-scam.html

Quote

...But, soon enough, the asbestos lawyers came up with a new tactic: finding lung cancer victims who had some exposure to asbestos. All of a sudden, lung cancer cases exploded in volume. “There is nothing new in the science to suggest an upsurge in cases,” says Peter Kelso, an asbestos expert with Bates White Economic Consulting. “It is just basically due to economic incentives.” That is, by bundling lung cancer cases with other cases, the plaintiffs’ lawyers could bring a new set of companies to heel. For many companies, it is cheaper to settle than fight.

The Asbestos Scam II

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/opinion/nocera-the-asbestos-scam-part-2.html?rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article

Quote

...For years, Garlock had made calculated decisions about how to deal with its asbestos litigation. It fought some cases and settled others. But, by 2010, inundated with mesothelioma cases, it too filed for bankruptcy protection. Then it did something different. It fought back.

The judge allowed the company to do a deep dive into 15 cases that Garlock had previously settled. For a victim to demand money from Garlock, he or she had to stipulate that Garlock’s gasket had been a primary exposure to asbestos. To maximize the money they could get from Garlock, they would deny, under oath, other exposures to the products of the bankrupt companies that had set up trusts.

But as Garlock soon discovered, no sooner had the victims settled then they would file documents with a dozen or more trusts stipulating the opposite: that they had had “meaningful and credible exposure” to asbestos from the bankrupt companies. (The plaintiffs’ lawyers, who control the trusts, have successfully fought to keep this information confidential.) Judge Hodges, in his decision, seemed thunderstruck that this pattern occurred in every case that Garlock investigated. The phrase he used to describe this behavior was “withholding evidence.”

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera called recent asbestos litigation a "scam" and complained that "tens of thousands" of asbestos cases are "bogus" and "phony," despite no evidence of widespread fraudulent asbestos claims.

Nocera dedicated his most recent column to attacking victims of asbestos exposure and their attorneys. Not only does Nocera significantly overstate the problem of fraudulent asbestos claims, he accused asbestos litigants of falsely attributing lung cancers to asbestos exposure to obtain damage awards.

Nocera is disturbed by the fact that McCarthy, a smoker, has opted to sue asbestos manufacturers instead of tobacco companies. But regardless of the individual merits of McCarthy's suit (which hasn't been decided yet), it is wholly irresponsible for Nocera to use it as evidence of "tens of thousands" of other bogus claims -- especially since there's no concrete evidence of widespread asbestos litigation fraud. When Congress asked the United States Government Accountability Office to audit these trusts (set up at the asbestos companies' initiative), the GAO reported that audits had not "identified cases of fraud."

Moreover, Nocera's characterization of the current state of asbestos litigation is misleading. It is true that many asbestos companies have gone bankrupt -- but according to Nocera's own editors, asbestos companies "often were aware of the dangers but concealed the risks from workers and the public." That is, some companies knowingly exposed people to asbestos, which causes an array of horrific diseases like mesothelioma and lung cancer. Furthermore, the reason the plaintiff's bar hasn't "run out of asbestos companies to sue" is because not only did companies specifically set up trusts to field future claims, some companies continue to import and use asbestos. In fact, the United States imported more than 1100 tons of asbestos last year "to meet manufacturing needs." Asbestos is still found in millions of buildings across the country, including offices and schools.

Nocera also ignores that there are already legal protections in place to prevent frivolous legal claims from advancing, as well as to prevent dishonest plaintiffs from being unfairly compensated. No judge would allow "tens of thousands" of fake lawsuits to proceed. But this doesn't seem to matter to Nocera, who thinks only "real victims" of asbestos exposure should be allowed to bring claims.

It is unclear who might fit Nocera's description of "real victims." Representative McCarthy has lung cancer, but because she also smoked cigarettes in addition to being exposed to asbestos, she evidently doesn't count as a "real victim." In fact, Nocera says, "the right thing for her to do is drop this lawsuit."

Typically, it's up to the civil justice system to determine which victims are "real," but apparently Nocera would prefer to decide these things for himself.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/12/03/nyt-columnist-accuses-asbestos-victims-of-scamm/197120

Fat~Bottom~Girl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> New York Times columnist Joe Nocera called recent
> asbestos litigation a "scam" and complained that
> "tens of thousands" of asbestos cases are "bogus"
> and "phony," despite no evidence of widespread
> fraudulent asbestos claims.
>
> Nocera dedicated his most recent column to
> attacking victims of asbestos exposure and their
> attorneys. Not only does Nocera significantly
> overstate the problem of fraudulent asbestos
> claims, he accused asbestos litigants of falsely
> attributing lung cancers to asbestos exposure to
> obtain damage awards.
>


Good old Media Matters is shilling for the trial lawyers now I guess. They'll publish slanted responses for anyone who will pay them.

In fact, there are tens of thousands of litigants involved in these cases.

And, as noted in the second link, there have been many examples of abuse demonstrated to the satisfaction of the courts.

But just to demonstrate how Media Matters, in its typical fashion, attempts to disingenuously slant its responses to such things by slightly altering the context:

> When Congress asked the United States Government Accountability Office
> to audit these trusts (set up at the asbestos companies' initiative),
> the GAO reported that audits had not "identified cases of fraud."

This was not an examination of fraud within the cases, but rather an examination of fraud within the set-up and operations of the trusts. It's not really pertinent to the point made but sounds good if you don't look too closely.

Likewise:

> No judge would allow "tens of thousands" of fake lawsuits to proceed.
> But this doesn't seem to matter to Nocera, who thinks only
> "real victims" of asbestos exposure should be allowed to bring claims.

In fact, judges don't determine whether "fake" lawsuits proceed other than in the case of some extraordinary circumstances. As long as there is standing and it's properly filed within the law, the case proceeds with the outcome based on its particular merits. And, as noted, in most of these cases they're looking for settlements not court awards. Again, intentionally glossing over that aspect as MM regularly does.

What's she going to do with all that money if she wins, then dies and goes to Hell?