Minor Changes to Bill Make it Worse for Asbestos Victims
WASHINGTON, June 2 – LAWFUEL – Press Release Service — In response to the re-introduction of the asbestos bailout bill in the U.S. Senate, Ken Suggs, President of
the Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), issued the following
statement:
“This is the same fundamentally flawed asbestos bailout bill that the
Senate wisely blocked in February. Once again, this legislation fails to
treat victims fairly while making taxpayers, not the wrongdoers, foot the
bill.
“It provides the asbestos industry with a $20 billion,
taxpayer-guaranteed bailout after it knowingly poisoned people, while
leaving numerous victims with nothing and others facing impossible
bureaucratic hurdles.
“The basic flaws in the bill that caused it to be opposed by a
bipartisan coalition of Senators, every major asbestos victims’
organization in the country, labor, the insurance industry, taxpayer
rights’ organizations, and a large number of affected companies remain
unchanged.
“If anything, the changes to the bill have made it worse for victims by effectively eliminating a sunset provision that would allow them to regain their rights in the civil justice system when the fund goes bankrupt — an outcome every independent analysis of the bill says is inevitable.
“Perhaps worst of all, bill supporters are giving false hope to
asbestos victims poisoned on 9/11 or after Hurricane Katrina — they have
the same negligible rights under the new version of the bill as the old
one, and still will be left with nothing when the fund collapses under its own weight and flawed design.”
ATLA, with 60,000 members in the United States, Canada and abroad, is
the world’s largest trial bar. It was established in 1946 to safeguard
victims’ rights, strengthen the civil justice system, promote injury
prevention, and foster the disclosure of information critical to public
health and safety. Visit http://www.atla.org/
