Alleged Asbestos Fraud Scheme

An asbestos lawyer and a doctor have been accused of creating false asbestos exposure diagnoses for the employees of a specific company.

From the Southeast Texas Record:

A Pittsburgh-based law firm and a West Virginia physician were part of an intricate web of deceit that reached as far as Texas and led to big money for all, say their accusers in a civil fraud lawsuit.

The Robert Peirce and Associates firm and Bridgeport, W.Va., radiologist Dr. Ray Harron face allegations in federal court leveled by CSX Transportation that the two conspired to create false asbestos exposure diagnoses for CSX employees.

With a trial set to begin Aug. 11 at U.S. District Court in Wheeling, W. Va., CSX seeks to recover the cost of defending and settling allegedly fraudulent asbestos claims.

Read the full post:  Alleged asbestos fraud scheme started years ago

Naturally-occurring asbestos found in Sumas River

(Seattle, Wash. - July 20, 2009) Naturally-occurring asbestos has been carried downstream of Swift Creek and along the banks of the Sumas River, according to samples recently collected by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The asbestos comes from a landslide on Sumas Mountain that deposits asbestos-laden sediment into Swift Creek, the focus of previous health and environmental studies.

The EPA’s sampling revealed asbestos and several metals in water, bank sediments, and recent flood deposits in Whatcom County, north of Swift Creek and approaching the Canadian Border. EPA has shared the study results with local property owners, the local and state health departments, the Washington Department of Ecology, and officials in Canada where the Sumas River continues northward. Read more

Asbestos Settlement Reached for Vermont Mine

A legal settlement allowing for the cleanup and monitoring on the nation’s largest former chrysotile asbestos mine and mill helps raise awareness of the prevalence of asbestos in society, says a New York personal injury attorney who concentrates in asbestos litigation.

“The cleanup of the Vermont asbestos group mine site is long overdue,” said Joseph W. Belluck, a partner at the New York law firm of Belluck & Fox, LLP, which handles asbestos-related injury cases. “Public access to the site should be controlled immediately, and runoff from the site stopped to protect the public from exposure.” Read more

Disappointing Asbestos Verdict in Grace Trial

A federal jury found W.R. Grace not guilty of asbestos contamination.  The Libby, Montana case has been the center of asbestos litigation and the results of the verdict are disappointing to say the least when considering all the facts.

From the Flathead Beacon:

On May 8, following a months-long trial, a U.S. District Court jury in Missoula acquitted W.R. Grace & Co. and three former executives on charges that they knowingly exposed Libby residents to tremolite asbestos from the company’s vermiculite mine and then covered it up to continue making profits and avoid liability.

The mine was first opened in 1939 and W.R. Grace purchased it in 1963, keeping it in operation until 1990. Vermiculite, a mineral containing the deadly asbestos, was used predominantly as insulation and fireproofing in millions of homes across the nation. At one point, 80 percent of the world’s vermiculite came from the Grace mine.

Libby’s story has been told countless times over the last decade. Books have been written and documentaries have been produced. Roving journalists became part of everyday life. They were there to tell the story of miners sickened by years of breathing in asbestos-laden dust, of family members who became sick after miners brought it back on their clothes, and of the hundreds of others who fell ill by exposure.

Last month, the government dropped charges against two W.R. Grace executives, William J. McCaig and Robert C. Walsh. The three who were found not guilty on May 8 were Henry A. Eschenbach, Jack W. Wolter and Robert J. Bettacchi. The final defendant, Grace’s in-house lawyer O. Mario Favorito, is scheduled for trial in September.

Read the full story here:  A New Chapter for Libby

EPA levies Asbestos fines to 5 schools in Arizona

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently fined five Arizona charter school operators a combined total of $ 35,700 for Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act violations.

In April 2007, EPA inspectors discovered the school operators failed to conduct inspections to determine if asbestos-containing material was present in school buildings, and all had failed to develop asbestos management plans. The schools have since completed inspections and have developed asbestos management plans. Read more

Deaths from Mesothelioma still on the rise according to CDC

To characterize mortality attributed to mesothelioma, CDC’s National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) analyzed annual multiple-cause-of-death records for 1999–2005, the most recent years for which complete data are available. For those years, a total of 18,068 deaths of persons with malignant mesothelioma were reported, increasing from 2,482 deaths in 1999 to 2,704 in 2005, but the annual death rate was stable (14.1 per million in 1999 and 14.0 in 2005). Read more

Judge Slams Federal Prosecutors in Grace Trial

From the ABA Journal:

A federal judge chastised prosecutors yesterday in a hearing on misconduct allegations in the two-month trial of W.R. Grace and five of its former executives. The company is accused of exposing residents of a Montana mining town to asbestos, resulting in hundreds of deaths from mesothelioma. Read more

Scientific and Medical Facts about Chrysotile Asbestos Released

The Environmental Information Association (EIA) and the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) today announced the development of the Chrysotile Asbestos Fact Sheet (CAFS). The EIA and ADAO concluded, along with the majority of scientific agencies, that there is sufficient evidence to support that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are carcinogenic and are responsible for asbestos-related lung cancer, mesothelioma, laryngeal and ovarian cancers. Read more

Libby Residents Faced Imminent Asbestos Risk

From ‘The Western News’:

The W.R. Grace & Co. environmental trial entered its eighth week on Monday with testimony from a government witness that described the imminent risk of asbestos exposure to Libby residents.

Expert witness Richard Lemen said the mineral’s needle-like fibers build in a person’s lungs over time. Lemen said that the more asbestos one inhales over time, the more they are pushed toward disease, thus an exposure poses an imminent threat. Read more

Asbestos Evidence Rule Smack Down

This is some news that isn’t good for plaintiffs and only positive for companies who have used asbestos in their products.   Is that good?

The Illinois Supreme Court has delivered a blow to a long-standing asbestos evidence rule that had been a defendant’s bane.

In a decision handed down Thursday morning, the court reversed the 1987 Lipke rule barring defendants in asbestos cases from introducing evidence of the plaintiff’s other exposures. Illinois is the only state in the country to have had a rule like Lipke.

“As the instant cause presents a factually different situation, Lipke is inappropriate,” Justice Charles Freeman wrote, delivering the majority opinion ruling for the defendant in the 2004 case Nolan v. Weil-McLain.

The vote was five to one, with Justice Thomas Kilbride dissenting.

FULL STORY

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