One of the standard comic devices of old silent films was a car racing alongside a railroad track, trying to beat a fast-moving train to the crossing. The car and the train reach the crossing at what seems to be the exact same moment, but somehow the car squeaks by just in time to avoid being obliterated.
A crazy stunt like that works in the movies. But in real life it's never a good idea to try to outrun a train.
Don't tell that to Pittsburgh attorney Robert Peirce and Bridgeport radiologist Ray Harron. These two Keystone Konspirators think they're clever enough to outrun a train -– or, more precisely, a railroad company -– and it appears they're about to discover what it's like to be run over.
CSX Transportation is bearing down on them.
In June 2010, Circuit Court Judge Arthur Recht dismissed with prejudice more than 1,400 asbestos claims filed against CSX Transportation by Peirce's firm. At the end of 2010, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated a fraud case filed against his firm by CSX.
The resurrected suit charges that the defendants schemed "to deliberately fabricate and prosecute objectively unreasonable, false, and fraudulent asbestos claims against CSX."
According to the complaint, "The lawyer defendants knew and expected that over time the fraudulent doctors they utilized would eventually assign positive scores to virtually all screening attendees regardless of whether those individuals actually exhibited signs of asbestos-related disease."
Harron lost his medical license in Texas in 2007 when a federal judge concluded he had falsified evidence to support such claims. Harron now has lost his license in a total of seven states and bankruptcy trusts have stopped paying claims based on his evaluations.
If CSX runs over Peirce and Harron with its civil suit, state authorities should consider criminal proceedings against the pair. They could end up being incarcerated where they can "hear the train a-coming."
Folsom Prison comes to mind.