News Coverage
Asbestos victims oppose Senate's plan
North Dakota senators take cautious approach on contoversial bill
Published March 18, 2004
The retired electrical workers playing cards Wednesday at their union hall in Minot tell similar stories about the asbestos dust they worked in when they were building power houses or working on missile sites in North Dakota.
They also share a distaste for a Republican bill in the U.S. Senate that would remove asbestos-injury litigation from the courts and turn claims over to an administrative agency for payment from a federal fund. They consider the bill a bail-out for the asbestos producers.
"The companies knew what they were doing was wrong when they made that stuff, so they should pay," said Dallas Wherley, who received a partial settlement last year but still has litigation pending.
Introduced last June, the Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act has survived in the Senate despite efforts by organized labor and some environmental groups to quash it. A Senate vote is expected later this month or in early April.
Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said previously that he could not support the bill as currently written. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., is waiting to see the final language before making his decision.
Also known as S. 1125, the bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Sen. Orrin Hatch would set up a victims compensation fund of $114 billion with contributions from insurers and companies that produced asbestos products. Once passed, litigation would cease, and victims instead would apply to the fund for compensation.
Opponents consider the available dollars and the compensation system grossly inadequate.
"The threshold for applicants is so low that you nearly have to be dead to get anything," said Dick Bergstad, business manager for the Electrical Workers Local 714 in Minot.
The national AFL-CIO lists as deficiencies in the bill:
- inadequate compensation for victims.
- inadequate funding to cover expected claims.
- lack of a non-adversarial, no-fault administrative system to process claims.
- wipes out pending court claims of victims and cancels settlements not yet paid out, forcing people to start over using the administrative process.
- absence of any medical screening of high-risk workers.
- preempts the right of railroad workers to file claims under the Federal Employee Liability Act, the railroads' workers' compensation system.
"The proposed trust fund makes an imperfect system far worse," said Richard Wiles, senior vice president for the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C. "We are not opposed to a federal fund in principal. But we are opposed to the current proposal that's been made by Sens. Hatch and Frist because it's severely under-funded. It will run out of money well before we would run out of people who are sick and dying. it would also make people who are awarded money through the courts wait for that money, and sometimes wait for years."
The Asbestos Alliance, a coalition of industry groups, argues the costs of asbestos litigation are a greater concern. The alliance noted there have been at least 70 bankruptcies, costing 60,000 jobs, because of lawsuits. About $70 billion already has been spent on lawsuit settlements.
Gary Selberg, a former electrical worker from Velva, noted many of the bankruptcies were reorganizations for companies that now are back to business as usual. He said limiting companies' liability encourages them to be irresponsible.
"If this bill passes, we are really concerned that the safety standards in the industry will go down," he said.
Currently, workers follow safety precautions in renovation of older facilities containing asbestos, although some former workers question whether the protections are always adequate. Asbestos was widely used in buildings until the 1970s.
Until the 1970s, the former Robinson Insulation Plant in Minot handled vermiculite, an asbestos-related product, from a Libby, Mont., mine that since has gone bankrupt. The Environmental Protection Agency found traces of asbestos on the property in 2001 and conducted a cleanup. Vermiculite from the mine also was used in construction of power plants at Center and Stanton.
Fargo attorney Jean Boechler said her clients seeking relief for asbestos injuries have included a phone line worker, a laundry worker and others whose contact with asbestos is harder to establish. People can be exposed to asbestos in buildings if it becomes airborne or from contact with clothing of people who have been around asbestos.
Boechler said one of her concerns with the Senate bill is the potential for long waits to settle claims. In North Dakota, there are no court delays, she said. A case can go to trial about a year after it's filed. If the remedy must come through a federal agency swamped with claims, it could take 10 to 15 years, she said.
Grand Forks attorney David Thompson, who also has handles asbestos lawsuits, said the legislation would eliminate 70 percent of all asbestos claims already filed, forcing people to start over through administrative channels.
Howard Herberg said his case is among 300,000 cases in a lawsuit that's been waiting in a Philadelphia court for 10 years. He and card-playing buddies Wherley, George Hanson and Roy Blikre deal with shortness of breath and some have battled different cancers.
Selberg said he retired early because of breathing problems. He considers his heart condition indirectly related to asbestos, which companies never warned him about despite their knowledge of its danger.
"Personally, I think the coverup by the companies and the manufacturers and the insurance companies is the biggest wrong they have done the American people because they knew about it 80 years ago. There's documented proof," Selberg said. "People were disposable for dollars."