Silicosis News and Lung Cancer
New Mississippi lawsuit limits take effect Wednesday
Associated Press
JACKSON, Miss. Aug. 31, 2004- Plaintiffs' attorneys in some parts of Mississippi filed a flurry of lawsuits to beat the deadline for a new state law limiting how much juries can award in civil cases.
The new law takes effect Wednesday. Legislators passed it during a special session in June.
"I know a lot of attorneys filing lawsuits because of the caps," said Hazlehurst lawyer Jim Shannon.
The new law sets a $1 million limit on non-economic damage awards for things like pain and suffering. It also sets punitive-damage awards at a percentage of a company's net worth.
Trial lawyers say the new caps wrongfully limit people's right to recover losses.
The caps may prevent people from hiring lawyers because bringing some civil cases can be expensive, said lawyer Jim McHugh, whose firm Wilkes & McHugh of Tampa, Fla., specializes in nursing home abuse cases.
However, business and economic officials say the new caps will end "lawsuit abuse" and increase job creation.
"It's going to be the beginning day for courtroom fairness," said Steve Browning, executive director of Mississippians for Economic Progress. "You will see more balance for businesses and industry in the courtroom."
In a 2002 special session called by then-Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, Mississippi legislators approved a bill limiting jury awards to $500,000 in medical malpractice lawsuits. The bill became law Jan. 1, 2003.
Business groups pushed for more changes since then, and lawsuit limits were widely discussed during last year's state elections. Republican Gov. Haley Barbour, who defeated Democrat Musgrove last November, called lawmakers into special session this spring after new lawsuit limits failed during the regular session.
Wilkes & McHugh filed six or seven lawsuits in the past week in Hinds County, including one on Monday, said Hinds County Deputy Circuit Clerk Ann Giles.
A Gulfport law firm has filed about 27 lawsuits for hundreds of plaintiffs in the past two weeks in Hinds County Circuit Court. The lawsuits were filed over workers' exposure to crystalline silica, a compound used in sand and granite. Breathing dust from silica has been linked to lung disease, according to lawsuits filed across the country. About 22 lawsuits were filed Monday. Normally, the clerk's office gets about 100 lawsuits a month.
Some circuit clerks say lawsuits are coming in, but not at a pace seen in December 2002 when attorneys filed a slew of lawsuits to beat the deadline on the medical malpractice claims caps.
"We had about seven or eight extra ones filed this month," Covington County Circuit Clerk Keith Earl Collins said. "We typically have about 20 filed a month, but it will vary."
Bolivar County Circuit Clerk Rosie Simmons said about 10 lawsuits were filed recently, most of them against nursing homes.
In Jefferson County, the area once known for a high number of lawsuits and large jury awards, Circuit Clerk Burnell Harris said there had not been a boon of last-minute filings.
Union predicts more silicosis cases to emerge
June 21, 2005 - The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union says it expects to see more silicosis-related claims emerge as workers exposed to sand dust in the 1970s start showing symptoms of the lung disease.
Democrats leader Lyn Allison and Liberal Senator Gary Humphries are calling for a Senate inquiry into the effects of silicosis on Australian workers.
The union's Queensland spokesman, Andrew Dettmer, says while the condition is not as common as asbestosis, it affects a range of companies, whose workers have been exposed to fine particles, such as mining, manufacturing and sandblasting.
"We would expect that those people who weren't provided with proper protective gear and protective clothing in the 70s, that of those people who are victims, that some of them would be coming out soon," he said.
Federal judge orders Abbott to explain X-ray evidence seizure
AG's office says grand juries subpoenaed it
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
August 24, 2006 - AUSTIN – A federal judge has ordered Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott to explain why his office seized thousands of X-rays that are evidence in a federal investigation of potentially fraudulent silicosis lawsuits filed by alleged victims of the lung disease.
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack also wants to know why an estimated 152 of the X-rays disappeared before the attorney general returned 40 boxes of records to a federal depository in response to an order from her.
"The arrogance of taking those documents from a federal court-supervised depository is astounding," the federal judge said in a hearing on the matter earlier this month. "The attorney general has exhibited a total disregard for the rule of law by doing this."
Jerry Strickland, a spokesman for the attorney general, said the X-rays were seized under subpoenas issued by two grand juries in Harris County. The juries are also investigating the silicosis lawsuits and the lawyers who filed them.
Mr. Strickland said the attorney general's office immediately returned the records once it was ordered to do so by Judge Jack.
"Every document obtained by this office was returned," he said. "It is very interesting that when we returned the documents, personnel at the depository looked into the boxes and found additional documents that never showed up on any previous inventory list."
Mr. Strickland said the dispute over the records is "a side issue distracting from the serious allegations behind this criminal investigation by the attorney general's office."
David Van Os, the Democratic nominee for attorney general challenging Mr. Abbott this year, said the records dispute is a very serious matter. He noted that armed agents for the attorney general threatened the depository supervisor with arrest if he didn't turn over the records.
"Greg Abbott is a lawyer and officer of the courts," Mr. Van Os said. "Seizing court records from the court's storage facility without consulting the presiding judge demonstrated a shocking level of arrogance and disrespect."
Judge Jack, who is based in Corpus Christi, received national attention last year when she called for throwing out all but one of 10,000 silicosis lawsuits because the diagnoses of the alleged victims appeared "manufactured" to generate damages for the plaintiffs.
Her findings spurred investigations by a congressional committee, federal prosecutors in New York and Mr. Abbott's office.
The lawsuits that have been under review by Judge Jack were consolidated from Texas, Alabama and Mississippi. Since her scathing report on the lawsuits, about two-thirds – more than 7,000 – have been dismissed.
Judge Jack has ordered Mr. Abbott's office to account for all the records that were seized by the attorney general in late June, including who in the state agency had access to the X-rays.
"At this point, we are evaluating the judge's order," Mr. Strickland said.
Silicosis is caused by inhaling fine silica dust and affects those who work in such occupations as sandblasting.
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