Asbestos News on West Virginia Record

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An analysis done by Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm KCIC found that asbestos filings were up by 2.4% in 2023 over the previous year.

CHARLESTON – A Putnam County plaintiff’s attorney who handles asbestos litigation says a legislative bill is looking to fix a problem that doesn’t exist and actually could lead to more problems.

CHARLESTON – A new report calls West Virginia the epicenter for the over-naming of defendants in asbestos litigation, with one recent case having 210 defendants.

One defense attorney says the entire process now seems "reckless" and "not necessary."

WHEELING – The circuit judge who says an upcoming consolidated asbestos trial will be “a dreadful experience” because of the Coronavirus pandemic has postponed another asbestos case until August 2021.

They’ve already sued cruise ship operators, soap manufacturers and insurance companies, but COVID-19 will give entrepreneurial lawyers plenty more opportunities to make money by targeting nursing homes, hospitals, pharmaceutical manufacturers, retailers and possibly even homeowners over the disease.

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Johnson & Johnson says a Food and Drug Administration panel charged with designing new standards for detecting asbestos in talc used “faulty assumptions” and failed to reflect scientific consensus in its draft recommendations.

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - A fierce behind-the-scenes conflict is growing as law firms that specialize in asbestos litigation urge the Food and Drug Administration to broaden the definition of mineral particles believed to cause disease while industry representatives try to make it narrower.

CHARLESTON – Defendants interrupted four asbestos trials in February by removing them from state courts to federal courts. The tactic failed every time.

WHEELING – I hesitate to disagree with the Feb. 19, 2020, view of The West Virginia Record because the paper has morphed into a valuable resource for the legal community and for the general public, and because I have to assume some responsibility for causing the paper to take the position it did in the editorial “Those plaintiff’s attorneys who push too far.” However, I need to disabuse the paper’s editors of the backhanded compliment that I have finally learned to stop overestimating the maturity of plaintiff attorneys in asbestos personal injury case.

CHARLESTON – A circuit judge has chastised some plaintiff’s law firms for not settling more lung cancer cases as well as the number of defendants in those asbestos cases. He lists at least 14 cases with more than 150 defendants each.

CHARLESTON – Th​​​​​e wife of a man who died of lung cancer is suing a large group of companies at which he might have been exposed to asbestos.

Multidistrict litigation – sprawling cases sometimes involving thousands of plaintiffs from all over the country – now represents more than half of the civil caseload in federal courts, according to a new survey, yet defendants complain the rules governing them are largely judge-made and haphazardly enforced.

A small group of highly paid experts, one of whom recently testified his firm has made $30 million offering mostly pro-plaintiff testimony, are the key ingredient for more than 10,000 lawsuits claiming talcum powder is laced with deadly asbestos, forming the tip of an inverted pyramid upon which the rest of the cases depend.

CHARLESTON — A Florida couple is suing dozens of companies, alleging failure to warn of the dangers of exposure to asbestos.

CHARLESTON — A wife is suing 3M and dozens of other asbestos manufacturers/suppliers/installers and employers, alleging negligence caused the wrongful death of her husband.

PINEVILLE – A coal miner alleges he has black lung because the respirators and/or dust masks he used failed to protect him from dust.

CHARLESTON — Asbestos litigation in West Virginia is holding steady, close to where it was in 2017.