Asbestos Cancer Claimant to US Senate: "Reject Inhumane Trust Fund Corporate Bailout!"

• A Blessing In Disguise: How a Painful Fall From an Ornery Horse Results in a Life-Saving Lung Cancer Surgery for 65 year old Asbestos Investigator. Keizer, OR (1/14/02)

• Punch Worthington "Here's Why Asbestos Needs All Those Rules", Albany Democrat-Herald (5/29/02)

Below is a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon opposing the Asbestos Trust Fund Bill (S. 1125)

• Click here to learn the mail and e-mail addresses of your elected officials in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

• More letters from Asbestos Cancer Survivors Taking Action Against Inhumane Asbestos Trust/Bail Out Bill (SB 1125)

May 28, 2003

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR)
700 NE Multnomah St
Suite 450
Portland, OR 97232

Re: Opposition to S. 1125, The Asbestos Trust Fund

Dear Senator Wyden:

I am a 67 year-old asbestos-lung cancer survivor. I was diagnosed with asbestosis in 1994 and asbestos-related lung cancer in 2001. I am a retired union painter and ironworker and I was exposed to asbestos occupationally in California, Oregon and Washington. For the past 11 years I have worked as an investigator for asbestos injury lawyers. I have had the privilege of meeting hundreds of asbestos cancer victims who reside on the West Coast. I have seen first hand the despair and devastation that asbestos has inflicted on working men and women and their families. I have also seen first hand that fair compensation can make a positive difference. The money cannot bring back life, or replace a lung, but it can help pay for the expensive surgeries and prevent widows from declaring bankruptcy.

In 2001, I too fell victim to asbestos lung cancer. Fortunately, I found my tumor early and was able to have it surgically excised along with my right middle lung lobe. I continue to have asbestos scarring and pleural calcifications in and around my remaining lungs. Both my wife and I dread the possible return of lung cancer and the onset of severe asbestosis. I have seen too many asbestos victims in their last stages of life, hooked up to an oxygen canister, bed-ridden, literally panting for breath. I have filed a claim for damages against the companies who are responsible for my asbestos poisoning. I have been looking forward to my day in court.

The Asbestos Trust Fund Bill (S. 1125), however, would strip me of my right to a jury trial. It would essentially void all the work we have done to prove our case. It would force me to accept a prescribed value as if my life was as fungible and common as a wrench. I have seen compensation tables for dead fish and marine life in the context of punishing the parties responsible for oil spills, but never for human life.

Under the "one-size-fits-all" table, a lung cancer victim who smoked would get not a penny more than $50,000. A non-smoker's recovery would be capped at 400,000, minus money from "collateral sources" like insurance payments. What's a smoker? I smoked cigarettes for relatively brief stretches while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and at other times. I quit smoking years ago. My doctors have never advised me that my remote smoking history had anything to due with my asbestosis or lung cancer, but would the Trust administrators categorize me as a "smoker", thus saving $350,000? Since I won't be able to use a lawyer, and the judges will be hand-picked by the President without any oversight by Congress, what chances do I really have to argue and win my case? I will be fighting against a new federal bureaucracy, a new commission (with their retained outside experts) and a panel of judges. I assume the money used to pay the salaries of those charged with preserving the fund (by way of reducing the level of compensation sought by claimants like myself) will be paid out of the trust fund, a scenario which in my view creates a conflict of interest. As much as I want to trust my government, I would rather retain my own counsel and let a jury of my peers decide what's fair.

If my settlements and insurance payments exceeded the prescribed "Benefits" value on the date the Trust Fund Bill became effective, the remaining unsettled defendants, that is, the trial targeted defendants who bear the most fault, would ultimately be dismissed, resulting in an egregious windfall to the tortfeasors and a gross miscarriage of justice.

In my view, this Bill is a regrettable attempt to dehumanize asbestos victims and strip them of their due process rights. If the "litigation crisis" is caused by too many unsick claimants clogging the court system, the answer is to simply preserve the tort system for sick claimants, such as cancer victims. The "final solution" proposed by Sen. Hatch can only serve corporate America. Indeed, the CEO of Georgia-Pacific boasted that if the Hatch Bill passed, he would be "partying in the streets." Well, I won't be partying. I'll be wondering about how I'm going to afford to pay my medical bills if and when my asbestos lung cancer recurs.

As a cancer survivor, I know the importance of reducing stress in my life, as recurrence is a very real threat. Although I can't remove the asbestos fibers in my lungs, I have taken comfort in the knowledge that one day a jury would decide what's fair compensation. In a courtroom, I'd be on the same playing field as Westinghouse, General Electric, and Pfizer, to name a few defendants in my case. Now, not only do I worry about a cancer recurrence, I'm very worried that my own government (which probably has known about the dangers of asbestos as far back as 1950) is going to deprive me of my right to seek fair compensation, all so that the insurance carriers and wealthy corporations responsible for my cancer can live on with "manageable debts and liabilities."

What kind of message does it send when the United States Congress says that an American's life is worth, at a maximum, only $400,000 if he was killed by lung cancer or only $750,000 if killed by mesothelioma? How were these numbers arrived at? Juries typically award several times these amounts. And why is it more important to our government to preserve the life of the unreal corporations who are responsible for the misery and death to begin with?

Finally, the Bill has no guarantees that the fund will remain solvent. I have learned the hard way that the corporate defendants will scratch and claw to reduce their share. In my case, the high-dollar defense lawyers grilled me for about 40 hours over 4 days over every detail of my exposure in an effort to blame each other. Like the toxic clean-up Superfund laws, the Asbestos Trust law will guarantee plenty of corporate infighting, boxcar loads of waste, more misery, and very little justice.

This Bill must be defeated.

For the sake of the thousands of victims of these deadly asbestos-caused cancers, vote against this special interest legislation that elevates fictitious corporate life over real human life. On the other hand, please vote for Senator Murray's Ban Asbestos Act (S.1115), a Bill that Congress can be proud of, as it seeks to undo the source of the underlying problem by banning the use of asbestos, creating a mesothelioma registry, and funding hospitals for the research and treatment of asbestos cancers. The Murray Bill is as humane as the Hatch Bill is inhumane.

Sincerely,

David H. Worthington, Ph.D.
Keizer, OR

*** POSTED MAY 29, 2003 ***