Home - Senate Judiciary Panel approves $108 billion trust fund for asbestos victims

Jul. 11--WASHINGTON--After a breakthrough compromise, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 10-to-8 Thursday night to create a national trust fund of at least $108 billion to settle all pending and future asbestos injury claims.

It remained unclear whether the shaky compromise on the complex legislation will retain enough support from businesses, insurers and advocates for asbestos victims to win passage on the Senate floor and later, in the House.

But the deal marked a major milestone in years of legislative attempts to reach a legislative solution to the mounting numbers of suits, and growing numbers of corporate bankruptcies, stemming from the nation's worst workplace disaster.

The AFL-CIO estimates that 27.5 million American workers have been exposed to asbestos, which does not produce disease symptoms for 10 to 40 years. Asbestos-related diseases are already estimated to have killed 300,000 Americans, and to have sparked 700,000 legal claims. The committee worked with estimates of 293,000 pending claims and a range of 1.2 million to nearly 2.4 million future claims.

Establishment of the trust fund, to be financed for at least 27 years by defendant companies and insurers, is designed to end inequities in the handling of claims by workers and their family members sickened from breathing microscopic asbestos fibers.

Victims would be compensated from a schedule for 10 categories of illness, ranging from free medical monitoring for those with scarring on their lungs but no breathing impairments, to $1 million for people stricken by mesothelioma, a fast-moving cancer of the lining of the lungs. If people became sicker, they could return to the fund for more compensation.

During weeks of hearings and closed-door negotiations, committee Democrats won major concessions to increase the size of the trust fund and to ensure a continued flow of cash if the number of future claims exceeds expectations.

The bipartisan deal requires that, if the fund exhausts all $108 billion, about 800 corporations and 11 to 15 insurance companies would pay tens of billions of dollars more, perhaps more than $153 billion.

News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA), Jul 11, 2003