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The Corporate Truth Squad (CTS) Alert is a project of USAction. The Corporate Truth Squad highlights how our civil justice system gives ordinary citizens the power to stand up against corporations that commit fraud, abuse or other wrongdoing. We will distribute the CTS Alert regularly, with documentary evidence of corporate indifference to predictable illness, injury and death, uncovered by ordinary citizens seeking justice through the courts.
Asbestos is a public health catastrophe that has killed 300,000 Americans so far and will eventually kill more than a half a million more. Millions more people exposed to asbestos suffer from asbestosis and pleural diseases. According to their own internal documents, asbestos companies and their insurers knew about the lethal dangers of asbestos, yet they hid the dangers and exposed their workers to the deadly product anyway.
The Proof:
In 1966, an industry magazine reported the startling conclusion of the U.S. Public Health Service that 40 percent of all Americans – not just those exposed to asbestos on the job but the entire population – suffered at least mild asbestosis. The magazine speculated Congress soon would enact asbestos exposure laws. [click here to read the article]
A senior executive in Honeywell’s Bendix Unit clipped and sent the article to an executive at the Canadian operation of Johns Manville, noting that "If you have enjoyed a good life working with asbestos products, why not die from it. There has to be some cause." [click here to read the 1966 document that includes this quote]
What's at Stake:
Instead of dying quietly, workers poisoned by asbestos took their cases to court – and won. Their quest has yielded millions of documents proving the plague unleashed by the “miracle fiber’’ was common knowledge to those who profited most.
Johns Manville lost its fight to avoid asbestos liability, and Honeywell has agreed to settle hundreds of thousands of claims from sick and dying asbestos victims. Today, the leadership of the U.S. Senate, with strong support from the White House, is pushing for a new law (S. 1125) to kill all litigation, including cases around the country where juries will soon see evidence that the insurance industry has systematically denied legitimate asbestos claims, even though they knew the dangers faced by workers. This litigation would be replaced with a new, untested, and underfunded national trust fund. Since contributions in to the trust fund by asbestos manufacturers and their insurance companies will be limited, the liability of major corporations will be reduced to far less than many have already agreed to pay claimants – and it will leave nothing for thousands of future asbestos disease sufferers.
S. 1125 would let multinational corporations off the hook and take away compensation that has already been promised to hundreds of thousands of asbestos victims. In its current form this legislation fails to require sufficient funding for the nearly 425,000 victims who will qualify for compensation when a proposed new national trust fund would begin operation. Asbestos victims would have to wait as long as ten years for help to cope with the devastating health and financial consequences of their asbestos-related illnesses.
Proponents call S. 1125 "fair." But, is it fair for workers and others made sick or dying from asbestos or to the corporations and insurance companies who knowingly exposed them to this poison? You decide.
For more information contact Helen Gonzales at 202-624-1730 or email hgonzales@usaction.org. Please visit our website at www.usaction.org
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