Women's stories give human touch to what's really an intense battle being fought by special interests.
Minneapolis Star Tribune, Greg Gordon
Published June 4, 2005
Mary Lou Keener and Susan Vento share a common anguish. Both lost loved ones to mesothelioma, a rare, asbestos-related cancer.
That's also where they part company.
Keener, the daughter of a World War II veteran, and Vento, the widow of a Minnesota congressman, have lent their voices to opposing sides of an all-out lobbying battle over a proposed $140 billion congressional settlement of the nation's asbestos injury suits - a bill now headed to the Senate floor.
"The current system is just not working," Keener declared in a television ad in which she described her family's struggle to recover damages for her father's death in 2001. The ad was partly underwritten by insurers, but its other financiers have not been disclosed.
In a rebuttal ad last year financed by trial lawyers, Vento said her husband, the late Rep. Bruce Vento, "and tens of thousands of others were poisoned by companies that knew the dangers of asbestos" and now want a congressional bailout.
Keener's and Vento's roles reflect today's so-called grass-roots lobbying tactics, in which special interests try to operate behind the veneer of obscure nonprofit groups and let everyday Americans do their talking. They also reflect the impassioned debate over a proposal that would dramatically alter the way up to 2 million victims of asbestos are compensated.
Keener also has appeared at an event with President Bush and has testified before the Senate to help sell the measure, which would create an industry-funded trust fund to disburse compensation ranging from $25,000 to $1.1 million.
Pitch for the bill
In Michigan with Bush in January, Keener described her family's struggle to recover damages after her father's 2001 death from asbestos exposure in the Navy 60 years ago. She said that her mother's suit has gone nowhere and that all but seven of about 60 corporate defendants are bankrupt. In fact, three of 59 defendants are bankrupt, and the case is set to go to trial in July.
Keener's pitch for the asbestos bill appears to have been effective. She and her husband, Hershel Gober, a former deputy secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), joined in creating a coalition that helped mobilize key support for the measure from 17 veterans groups last month. No one will say who financed that effort, either. The backing of Navy veterans, thousands of whom contracted lung diseases from breathing asbestos fibers in shipyards or on board ships, has made it easier for the bill's sponsors to attract crucial Democratic votes.
Vento, a longtime representative from St. Paul, died in 2000, apparently because he breathed asbestos while working part-time factory jobs as a young man. Susan Vento heads one of several victims' groups opposing the proposed trust fund on grounds that every victim should have a right to a jury trial.
She acknowledges that her Committee to Protect Mesothelioma Victims has received financial help from SimmonsCooper LLC, a southern Illinois plaintiffs' law firm. Also, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) helped underwrite a Vento ad last year.
She also concedes that the $1.1 million that the trust fund would pay each mesothelioma victim is probably more than her family would recover from its pending wrongful-death suit.
But, she says, "It isn't about the money. It's about democracy and the fairness of it. It seems like we're using the victims as a prop. It's not the victims who are going to be helped by this. It's the industry."
The central players in the lobbying are, on the one side, asbestos plaintiffs' attorneys, who are at risk of losing their share of jury awards, and on the other side, manufacturers that seek to finally cap mushrooming asbestos liabilities. Insurers were also big supporters, but they say the latest version of the bill is unacceptable.
Labor unions are divided. Businesses argue that action is needed to address a "litigation crisis" that has bankrupted 74 companies. Trial lawyers call it "a public health crisis" brought on by companies that knew of asbestos' dangers but didn't warn workers.
The ads and counter-ads have appeared under the banners of nonprofit groups whose names tend to sound alike or offer no hint of the special interests behind them. The Citizens for Asbestos Reform aired Keener's ad last year, and the Veterans Asbestos Reform Coalition, recently formed by associates of Keener, ran it again this month. U.S. Action aired Vento's ad.
Manufacturers, including many of the companies Keener's family is suing, are the bill's biggest supporters.
San Francisco Bay Area attorney Steven Kazan said the plaintiffs' law firms are prepared to spend $25 million or more fighting the bill.
Asbestos awards
Perhaps no victim has done more to back the measure than Keener, a former VA general counsel.
In a phone interview, Gober said he and Keener are liberal Democrats who generally oppose tort reform, but they are outraged that lawyers are taking as much as 40 percent, plus expenses, of asbestos awards.
Court records show that Keener's father, Dallas Brady, died Nov. 11, 2001 - Veterans' Day. A suit was filed in San Francisco in April 2002 on behalf of Keener's mother and brother against companies that supplied asbestos insulation products to the Navy and firms that manufactured asbestos brake linings. After leaving the military, Brady spent his career at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Mich., and also performed home brake jobs.
Kazan and other San Francisco area plaintiffs' attorneys who have brought similar mesothelioma suits say they typically recovered $3 million or more.
Chief Judge Robert Dondero of San Francisco County Superior Court said asbestos suits, while typically comprising 15 to 20 percent of the court's caseload, are moving right along, especially those involving terminally ill patients, who are entitled to a trial within 120 days under California law. Brady survived just six months after his cancer's diagnosis and did not sue before he died.
Dondero said there is less urgency to resolve a wrongful-death case (such as the one filed by Brady's widow, Rosemary Brady), and 2 1/2 years would be "a reasonable time" to get it to trial.
The three-year-old Brady case was delayed an additional seven months because Honeywell Corp., which owns brake manufacturer Bendix Corp., a defendant, had the case moved to a federal court in Delaware. Federal courts in Delaware and Texas later rebuked Honeywell for its tactic and returned the suits to state courts.
Honeywell's general counsel, Peter Kreindler, said the incident only shows that the current adversarial system "has clogged the courts and delayed cases. That's one of the reasons for the trust fund."
When Keener's ad first aired last year, Vento flew to North Carolina to film a response ad.
Keener says she gave up control over her ad and, now that it continues to air, regrets refusing to be paid for it.
"I should have taken every cent I could get," she said, "and had them make out the checks to my mother."
Following the money
Asbestos bill supporters:
- Citizens for Asbestos Reform: American Insurance Association financed part of $747,000 in print and TV ads; other donors secret.
- Veterans Asbestos Reform Coalition: Spent $205,000 running an ad featuring Mary Lou Keener this spring; source of funding unknown.
- Asbestos Alliance: Business coalition set up by the National Association of Manufacturers; has bought newspaper ads.
Asbestos bill opponents:
- Environmental Working Group: Since 2004 has aired $3 million in national TV ads financed by trial lawyers.
- U.S. Action: Progressive nonprofit group, with trial lawyers' financing, spent $300,000 on Sue Vento ad.
- Senate Accountability Project: Formed by Dallas trial lawyer Mark Iola; has bought ads attacking the bill from a $10 million-plus advertising budget.
Source: Star Tribune research
