Dear Editor:
Just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered our economy and will surely spawn nearly endless litigation, Judge Ron Wilson issued an order in his asbestos docket that is worth reviewing.
In the order, the judge expressly acknowledges that there is “abuse” in his asbestos docket involving lawsuits against “questionable defendants” based on “evidence of their liability” that “amounts to a mere gamble in a lawsuit.” He then implores the plaintiff lawyers responsible for that “abuse” to cash-out now with the victimized defendants lest they get too close to trial and jeopardize his “great system” that aids and abets the abuse.
West Virginia’s legal system has improved greatly over the last decade, but it obviously has more room to improve. Lawsuit abuse is alive and well in West Virginia and will be as long as personal injury lawyers continue to make millions of dollars off of our broken system.
Sincerely,
Jordan Burgess
Executive Director, West Virginia Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse
