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House committee looking into silicosis suits involving Waco law firm
By Mike Copeland Tribune-Herald business editor
February 21, 2006 - A U.S. House committee investigating silicosis lawsuits has asked a Waco law firm to provide records and information about the suits it filed.
The Waco firm of Campbell, Cherry, Harrison, Davis & Dove also is defending itself against claims in Mississippi that it should pay $330,000 in sanctions for filing “baseless” silicosis suits against 134 companies.
These legal maneuverings are swirling around a disease caused by inhaling fine silica dust through occupations such as sandblasting.
Nationally, lawmakers are honing in on these suits and the use of “screeners” who move X-ray equipment from one location to another to test workers for silicosis.
“We are concerned that there appears to be no meaningful doctor-patient relationship established by the screening process at issue,” says a letter the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee sent to 13 law firms.
The letter is signed by committee chairman Joe Barton, R-Texas, and Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee.
Campbell, Cherry spokesman Steve Harrison said the firm “will be happy to respond to the letter.”
“Those letters are brutal, in terms of the level of information and detail they ask,” said Danny Mulholland, a Mississippi-based defense attorney representing about 30 companies sued over exposure to silica dust. “This committee is getting to the meat of the matter, so to speak.”
Mulholland works for a law firm in Jackson, Miss., that is pursuing monetary sanctions against the Campbell, Cherry law firm and several others.
He accuses the Waco firm of “fraudulent conduct and pursuit of baseless claims.”
Campbell, Cherry has filed a 42-page response. It says the request for sanctions “is totally without merit.”
In 2003, the Waco firm sued 134 U.S. companies on behalf of more than 4,200 people who said they suffered silicosis. Nearly all of these cases were filed in Mississippi, where Campbell, Cherry has an office.
But a federal judge in Corpus Christi last year rocked the world of silicosis legislation when she questioned the validity of nearly 10,000 lawsuits involving the lung disease, including thousands filed by Campbell, Cherry.
In a scalding 249-page decision, U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack accused the attorneys, doctors and X-ray screening services involved of taking an assembly-line approach to diagnosing silicosis with an eye toward making cases.
The diagnoses “were manufactured for money,” she wrote.
Jack sent the cases back to various state courts along with her report. She tossed out about 100 Texas cases over which she felt she had jurisdiction.
Her ruling delved into the use of X-ray scanners. The Waco firm, for example, relied heavily upon a screening company called N&M in Mississippi.
Jack wrote that the firm probably paid its screener more than $3 million, judging by the number of plaintiffs who used the firm to file suits, thinking they showed signs of silicosis.
In December, a Mississippi judge dismissed more than 4,000 silicosis-related cases that Campbell, Cherry had filed and that Jack had moved to state court.
Mulholland said he and attorneys for Campbell, Cherry agreed to recommend that the cases be dismissed.
“The cases just didn't have much life left in them,” Mulholland said. He said Mississippi used to have the reputation for being a great place to file civil suits. Many of the suits filed by Campbell, Cherry were on behalf of Alabama clients.
But Mississippi, in the midst of tort reform, is tossing out suits filed on behalf of outsiders.
“When these claims were filed,” Harrison said, “it was proper to join multiple plaintiffs in one lawsuit in Mississippi, even if those plaintiffs were out-of-state plaintiffs. The Mississippi Supreme Court has now ruled that except in some limited circumstances, you can't prosecute claims of out-of-state plaintiffs in Mississippi.”
The decision by Campbell, Cherry attorneys to have the cases dismissed “had nothing to do with the merits of the claims,” Harrison added.
Mulholland said the Campbell, Cherry cases also lost steam when the doctor who provided about 3,700 diagnoses for that firm later withdrew his diagnoses.
mcopeland@wacotrib.com
Exporters cash in on desert boom
By Nicolette Burke
June 12, 2007 12:00am
Article from: The Daily Telegraph
A GROUP of Australian companies is exporting the impossible - they are selling sand to Saudi Arabia.
The construction boom in the desert nations of the Middle East has created a demand for raw materials, and the region has become a new export destination for Australian businesses.
Perth's GMA Garnet will this month send a shipment of heavy mineral sand to Saudi Arabia for sandblasting, a high-pressure technique to smooth and clean hard surfaces in buildings.
Managing director Torsten Ketelsen said the special alluvial sand is suited for sandblasting because it is free of silica, which creates dust that can cause lung cancer and silicosis in workers.
"The Australian garnet sand that we are exporting has unique characteristics including very high hardness and durability which is perfect as an industrial abrasive and for ultra-high pressure waterjet cutting applications," Mr Ketelsen said.
The company has set up its bulk handling and reprocessing plants in Jebel Ali and more recently in Jubail, in Saudi Arabia.
Austrade estimates exports to the Middle East region more than tripled since 1991 from $1.7 billion to $5.6 billion, and are continuing to grow.
Senior Trade Commissioner for Saudi Arabia, Garry Kennedy, said Australians were having great success, largely in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, by creating a point of difference with products.
"There are great opportunities for exporters from a diverse range of industries in the Middle East and North Africa," Mr Kennedy said.
"Today, there are almost 3500 Australian exporters doing business with the Middle East, with over 1700 Australian businesses exporting to the UAE alone."
Another firm selling a sand-based product to the desert region is NT Prestressing, which has a type of concrete that can be laid quickly, speeding up building.
That concrete is being put to the test on the world's tallest building, the Burj tower in Dubai, 468m tall late last week and set to reach 800m.
The development set a new world record for vertical concrete pumping by pumping concrete up to 460m, beating the previous record in Taipei, for the 509m tall 101 tower.
NT Prestressing Managing Director Tom Wilson said although the company has been operating in the area for more than a decade, the Burj building is a very exciting project to have secured.
"The Burj building is an international beacon for excellence. The owners have openly declared that they have sought only the best international expertise and materials and we were very honoured to have been included in this select group."
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