Once upon a time, asbestos was practically everywhere. Because the material causes devastating forms of cancer and lung disease, huge product-liability litigation sprung up. That led to huge settlements, which led to the establishment of huge trusts, created to assure payment to millions of current and future claimants.
Some $20 billion now resides in these 40 or so trusts, set up by Johns Manville Corp., Owens Corning and other former makers and sellers of asbestos. But who’s overseeing the trusts? Is the money getting spent properly? In short, are the trusts working as designed?
Trusts have come under fire from insurance companies contending that they lack transparency, pay questionable claims and unfairly enrich plaintiffs’ lawyers.
But part of the issue, it seems, is that asbestos trusts aren’t required to disclose the names of people who file injury claims or identify those who are awarded payouts for their conditions. Moreover, because asbestos claimants are often the largest class of creditors in asbestos-related bankruptcy proceedings, their lawyers play a major role in deciding who receives payouts from the trusts and how much they get.
If you or a family member has been personally injured because of the fault of someone else: by the use of dangerous and defective drugs, bad products, or toxic injury etc then please contact the Fort Worth Texas Asbestos Mesothelioma Product Liability Attorney Dr. Shezad Malik. For a no obligation, free case analysis, please call 817-255-4001 or Contact Me Online.
The Dr. Shezad Malik Law Firm is currently evaluating and accepting Asbestos Mesothelioma cases.