The 10 Scariest Things About Ny Asbestos Litigation
Lorain asbestos lawyers in New York can receive compensation from a mesothelioma lawyer. These diseases are usually brought on by asbestos exposure. The symptoms may not be apparent for many years.
The judges who manage NYCAL's caseload have crafted patterns of favoring plaintiffs. A recent decision could further undermine the rights of defendants.
Upstate New York Asbestos Litigation Dockets
Asbestos litigation differs from a typical personal injury lawsuit. These cases involve a variety of defendants (companies that are in court) and law firms representing plaintiffs, and numerous expert witnesses. Additionally, there are usually specific job sites that are the focus of these cases because asbestos was employed in a variety of products and a lot of workers were exposed to it while working. Asbestos sufferers are usually diagnosed with serious illnesses such as mesothelioma and lung cancer.
New York has its own unique method of handling asbestos litigation. It is one of the biggest dockets across the country. It is governed by a specific Case Management Order. This CMO was designed to handle large numbers of asbestos cases involving a multitude of defendants. The judges involved in the NYCAL docket have extensive experience in asbestos cases. The docket is also the site of some of the highest plaintiff verdicts in recent history.
The New York Court of Appeals has recently made some significant changes to the NYCAL docket. In 2015 the political establishment in Albany was shaken to its foundation when the former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted on federal corruption charges. He had been accused of destroying every reasonable crafted tort reform bill in the legislature for more than 20 years while moonlighting for the plaintiffs firm Weitz & Luxenberg.
Justice Sherry Klein Heitler, the long-time head of the NYCAL docket, was dismissed in April 2014 amidst reports that she had given the Weitz & Luxenberg law firm "red-carpet treatment." She was replaced by Justice Peter Moulton, who introduced a variety of changes to the docket.
Moulton introduced a new rule for the NYCAL docket that requires defendants to provide evidence that their products are not responsible for mesothelioma of plaintiffs. He also implemented an updated policy that states that he wouldn't dismiss cases until the expert witness testimony had been completed. This new rule will greatly impact the pace of discovery in cases on the NYCAL docket and could result in better outcomes for defendants.
In other New York asbestos news, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia recently dismissed MDL 875 and ordered all asbestos cases in the future to be transferred to another district. This change will hopefully result in more uniform and efficient handling of these cases since the MDL currently MDL has developed reputation for abuse of discovery, unwarranted sanctions and a lack of evidentiary requirements.
Central New York Asbestos Litigation Dockets
After years of corruption by former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and his mismanagement scandals involving Sheldon Silver's ties with asbestos attorneys have finally brought attention to the city's rigged asbestos court. Justice Peter Moulton, who is now in charge of NYCAL has already held a Town Hall meeting with defense lawyers to hear complaints about the "rigged" system which favors a powerful asbestos law firm.
Asbestos lawsuits differ from a typical personal injury case, as it involves many of the same plaintiffs and defendants. Asbestos litigation also generally involves similar job sites where many workers were exposed to asbestos, often leading to mesothelioma or lung cancer, as well as other diseases. This can lead large verdicts that can block court dockets.
To limit this problem To address this issue, several states have passed laws that limit the type of claims that can be filed. These laws usually address medical requirements two disease rules expedited scheduling, joinders, forum shopping, punitive damage and successor liability.
Despite these laws, some states still face a large number of asbestos lawsuits. In an effort to reduce the number of lawsuits filed and to speed up their resolution, some courts have set up special "asbestos dockets" that apply a series of different rules to these cases. The New York City asbestos docket for instance demands that claimants meet specific medical criteria and also has a rule of two diseases and utilizes an accelerated trial plan.
Certain states have also passed laws to limit the amount of punitive damages awarded in asbestos cases. These laws are designed to discourage particularly bad behavior and provide greater compensation to victims. Regardless of whether your case is filed in a state or federal court, you should work with a New York mesothelioma lawyer to learn more about the laws that affect your particular situation.
Alfred Sargente focuses his practice on toxic tort and environmental litigation, product liability, commercial litigation and general liability matters. He has a wealth of experience defending clients against claims of exposure to asbestos, Lead and World Trade Center Dust in both New York City and New Jersey. He is also frequently defending cases alleging exposure to other contaminants and hazards, such as vibration, noise, mold and environmental toxins.
Southern New York Asbestos Litigation Dockets
Many people have died from asbestos exposure in New York. Mesothelioma patients and their families have filed lawsuits in five counties against manufacturers of asbestos-containing products to seek compensation. Mesothelioma lawsuits that are successful hold negligent asbestos companies accountable for their reckless decisions.
New York mesothelioma lawyers are skilled in representing clients from different backgrounds against the nation's largest asbestos producers. Their legal strategies can result in a substantial settlement or trial verdict.
Asbestos litigation in New York has a rich history, and it continues to make headlines. According to the 2022 report on mesothelioma claim filings by KCIC, New York is the third most popular state in which to file a mesothelioma suit after California and Pennsylvania.
The state's judiciary has been impacted by the influx of asbestos lawsuits. In 2015, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver was convicted on federal corruption charges, which were partly relating to the millions of dollars of referral fees he received from the politically-powerful plaintiffs' law firm Weitz & Luxenberg from handling asbestos cases. Justice Sherry Klein Heitler was appointed NYCAL's manager in the wake of the scandal. She had been managing NYCAL since 2008.
Justice Heitler was succeeded as NYCAL judge by Justice Peter Moulton, who has made it clear that defendants cannot obtain summary judgment unless they present an "scientifically sound credible, admissible and reliable scientific study" that shows the measured amount of exposure a plaintiff received was not sufficient to cause mesothelioma. This effectively ends the possibility that NYCAL defendants will be able to obtain summary judgment.
Justice Moulton also ruled that the plaintiff must prove some damage to their health as a result of asbestos exposure before the court to award compensation. This ruling, along with a decision made in early 2016 which ruled that medical monitoring was not a tort claim, makes it virtually impossible for an asbestos defence lawyer to prevail on a NYCAL Summary Motion for Judgment.
The latest case in which Judge Toal is presiding on, a mesothelioma suit filed against DOVER GREENS, claims that the company was in violation of asbestos work practices regulations when it renovated buildings on the Manhattan campus in October 2013 to host an event to raise money for. The lawsuit asserts that DOVER GREENS did not follow CAA and asbestos NESHAP regulations because it failed to inform and inspect the EPA prior to beginning renovations, or to properly remove, store and dispose of asbestos, and appointing a trained representative present at renovation activities.
Eastern New York Asbestos Litigation Dockets
At one point, asbestos personal injury/death cases filled state and federal court dockets and drained judges' resources for judicial work and prevented them from addressing criminal cases or other important civil disputes. The bloated litigation impeded the prompt compensation of victims as well as frustrated innocent families. It also led to companies to invest excessive money on defense.
Asbestos claims are filed by people diagnosed with mesothelioma or other asbestos-related diseases, after exposure to asbestos at work. The majority of cases are filed by construction workers, shipyard employees as well as other tradesmen working on structures that contained or were constructed using asbestos-containing materials. They were exposed to dangerous asbestos fibers during the manufacturing process or while working on the actual structure.
Asbestos litigation was the first mass tort. In the late 1970s and 1980s there was a flurry of personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits arising from asbestos exposure filled the courts. This happened in federal and state court across the country.
The plaintiffs in these lawsuits claim that their illnesses resulted from the negligence of asbestos-related products' manufacture and that the companies failed to inform them of the dangers that come with exposure. More than half of asbestos lawsuits are brought in federal courts.
In the early 1990s, after recognizing the fact that this litigation was "terrible calendar congestion," District Judge Jack B. Weinstein and New York Supreme Court Justice Helen Freedman jointly consolidated for settlement and pretrial purposes hundreds of federal and state cases that claimed asbestos exposure at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Judge Weinstein and Justice Freedman handled these cases and were referred to as the Brooklyn Navy Yard consolidation, under the supervision of a Special Master.
Many defendants had been involved in asbestos claims in the past. The defendants were Garlock, Inc, H & A Construction Company, as successors to Spraycraft Corporation, CRH, Inc. and successors to E.I. Dupont, W.R. Grace and Company, Empire-Ace Insulation Manufacturing Corporation, Bell/Atlas Asbestos Corp., and DNS Metal Industries, Inc. were all defendants.