Corporate associations complain that tort attorneys routinely take advantage of potential plaintiffs, in conjunction with medical professionals willing to lend support to their questionable claims. Companies often find themselves spending their hard-earned money defending against baseless claims brought by such shady lawyers and supportive doctors.
There have been some recent changes in tort law that require any new asbestos claims to be heard by a specific judge in each state, and so many personal injury lawyers have used this to show that there is no further need for action by state legislatures. However, some trial attorneys have been able to find a forum for a new class of cases which focus on injury claims related to silica.
Business lobbyists counter that there is a simple measure to resolve this. If we simply ask that anyone filing a lawsuit must demonstrate suffering and injury from their exposure prior to wasting the court’s time, this will fix the problem. We need proof beyond a simple x ray, which can be exaggerated by unethical doctors.
The proposed bill would ask claimants to meet rigid medical standards prior to filing. They’d have an x ray, breathing test and doctor’s exam.
The bill does protect the interests of the workers as well as it gives workers that cannot yet prove harm a few protections. First, it removes the past limitations of two year.
If a worker had been previously blocked from filing a claim but later developed symptoms that were severe enough to pass the medical requirement, they would be able to sue regardless of how much time had elapsed. The bill would also prevent insurance companies from denying coverage to that worker regardless of whether medical tests reveal asbestos exposure.
These measures provide valuable safeguards, but some proponents argue the medical guidelines are too strict. The proposed bill would maintain medical requirements prior to commencement of a lawsuit, though a judge would have the authority to send the claim through the process in order to assess its seriousness. The effort is in trying to weed out cases which are truly fraudulent, while also safeguarding the rights of workers who have been exposed.
One opponent pointed out that if physicians are just lying in order to participate in fraudulent claims, then no bill in the world can fix that problem. This bill wouldn’t keep doctors from lying in order to meet the new, higher standard.
Regardless of the motives, the state has an obvious interest to eliminate the fraudulent claims from the law system. Workers that actually have meaningful claims should hope to see their cases heard sooner. Although the members of the house proposed this amendment, this will only effect the bill in the house and not the senate as well.
Posted in 
