News Coverage
Bush uses Macomb visit to push for limits on asbestos lawsuits
Published January 8, 2005
President George W. Bush came to a Macomb County stage Friday to blast what he called the crippling effect on manufacturers in Michigan and nationwide of frivolous asbestos-related lawsuits.
With one leg cocked on a chair rung and a spotlight glinting off his U.S. flag lapel pin, Bush said Congress needs to act to limit the "junk lawsuits" that clog courts and have forced some companies into bankruptcy.
"Those with no major medical impairment make up the vast majority of claims, while those who are truly sick are denied their day in court," Bush said, adding that asbestos-related litigation could ultimately cost the nation $200 billion and has already bankrupted 70 companies.
The forum, which drew nearly 1,000 invited guests to the Macomb Center for the Performing Arts in Clinton Township, came two days after Bush took aim at medical malpractice lawsuits in Illinois. Limits on lawsuits that hurt American business and raise costs for consumers were a theme of Bush's re-election campaign.
On Friday he outlined three broad goals for Congress -- focusing on those who are truly sick from asbestos exposure, speeding up justice for them and protecting innocent companies -- but he did not tout any specific reforms.
Rich Uranis, a Taylor man whose lungs are scarred because of his exposure to asbestos, said Bush doesn't understand.
"I would ask him to walk a mile in my shoes," said Uranis, 52, who worked for about three years in a dust-choked Dearborn factory that used an asbestos-laden vermiculite to create insulation and fireproofing material in the late 1970s.
"It's clear the courts are clogged, but these are people dying because their companies didn't tell them the risks. How do you put a price on that?" Uranis said.
Asbestos is in a group of naturally occurring fibers used in a variety of consumer, industrial, maritime, automotive, scientific and building products because of its high resistance to heat and flame. Airborne fibers lodge in the lungs. Decades later, the exposure may cause scarring and fatal cancers.
In Michigan the toll is particularly high -- both for workers and companies contending with litigation. In metro Detroit, asbestos was a workplace hazard for generations of workers in auto plants, shipyards and other industries.
The Associated Press reported that Federal-Mogul, a Southfield-based auto supplier, filed for bankruptcy in 2001 because of more than 365,000 lawsuits claiming asbestos-related damages. The firm was drawn into the morass in 1998, when it bought several companies with pending asbestos lawsuits.
Overall, Michigan ranks 12th in the number of asbestos-related deaths, with at least 1,140 between 1979 and 2001, according to government data compiled by the Washington, D.C.-based Environmental Working Group.
Wayne County, with at least 248 such deaths, tops Michigan, followed by Oakland and Macomb.
More than 10,000 Americans will die from asbestos-related illness in the coming year, the EWG estimates, and thousands more will become ill with nonfatal lung scarring and other ailments.
Lester Brickman, a law professor from Yeshiva University in New York who joined Bush on stage, said 850,000 people have filed claims of asbestos exposure since litigation began. Of those claims, he said, 600,000 are largely baseless.
"Lawyers have taken this tragedy and turned it into an enormous moneymaking machine," Brickman said.
Rick Wiles, senior vice president of EWG, said Bush's insistence that lawsuits are destroying corporations is a red herring.
"There are problems on both sides, yes. But, before anything, we need to determine who's really injured and how injured are they," Wiles said.