Tort Reform in Kansas –Act NOW!!
March 30th, 2006 by Brendan SteinhauserFreedomWorks Kansas, we need your help!!!
Please call your state representative and senator and tell them to support Asbestos Tort Reform, specifically, senate bills 422 and 512.
The Wichita Eagle
Bills to deter asbestos lawsuits enter House
BRENT D. WISTROM, The Wichita Eagle
They’re just microscopic flecks of minerals.
But under the right circumstances asbestos and silica particles can lead to bigger things like cancer, lawsuits, bankruptcy and death.
Few asbestos lawsuits are currently being filed in Kansas. But the state’s chamber of commerce is worried lawsuits may move into Kansas as other states set rules that make it harder to file asbestos and silica claims.
The Chamber bought full-page ads that ran in this newspaper and several others earlier this week urging people to call on lawmakers to “inoculate our courts against these unfounded lawsuits.”
Two proposals to be debated in the House today aim to do that.
Bills 422 and 512 would require people who want to sue companies to have medical evidence before even filing a case. The evidence would have to include a physician’s report that the victim’s symptoms are from exposure to asbestos or silica particles and not from smoking or other conditions.
“There’s not a problem here,” chamber President Lew Ebert said. “But unless states pass these sort of pre-emptive laws… it’s easy to move (cases) state to state.”
Ebert said a flood of new lawsuits could make the state less attractive to newcomers.
Some lawmakers and attorneys, however, say the solution the chamber is proposing could cut off legitimate claims.
“This is unnecessary,” said Andy Hutton, a Wichita lawyer who has handled asbestos cases. “It takes away a victim’s rights before they have a chance to do anything about it.”
Rep. Nile Dillmore, a Wichita Democrat who is involved in negotiating the bills, said the legislation is moving along without advice from people with legal or medical expertise in asbestos cases.
“It was just all lawyers, telling us how doctors should be diagnosing cancers in their patients,” he said.
“We’re undertaking a reform of tort procedures that the House committee is unqualified to do.”
Dillmore also is concerned the bills are being pushed by Rep. Eric Carter, an Overland Park Republican who is running for insurance commissioner in the August primary. “This is a big deal and way too susceptible to being politicized,” Dillmore said. “This is a very important policy decision.”
But Carter said there has been an explosion of asbestos-related lawsuits around the country and Kansas needs to get ahead of the problem.
He said other states have mass screenings where x-ray vans pull up and screen hundreds of people who turn around and file frivolous lawsuits.
“While the claims may have no merit, they’re expensive to have dismissed,” Carter said. “Economically, it has the same affect as a mugging.”
He said his support is not politically motivated.
“I’ve been known as a tort reform advocate long before I decided to run for insurance commissioner,” he said.
Silicosis is an irreversible and sometimes fatal lung disease caused by overexposure to crystalline silica that is often sent airborne while cutting stone in mines or quarries.
More than 1 million U.S. workers are exposed to silica every year. More than 250 each year die from silicosis, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
An estimated 1.3 million employees in construction and general industry face significant asbestos exposure on the job.
Most on-the-job exposure to asbestos occursin the construction industry when workers remove asbestos during renovation or demolition. Workers can also be exposed when working with car brakes.
