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Asbestos judge tosses out 3 lawsuits
By Paul Hampel
Of the Post-Dispatch
Madison County Circuit Judge Daniel J. Stack dismissed on Wednesday three out-of-state asbestos cases in his first rulings as chief asbestos judge, criticizing such lawsuits as a "cash cow" for the county.
Stack inherited a backlog of asbestos cases on Sept. 8 from Circuit Judge Nicholas G. Byron, who resigned from the docket in July to handle other civil cases.
Stack's decisions come after a Post-Dispatch series last month disclosed the huge volume of lawsuits filed in the county, which has become a national center for asbestos litigation.
The paper reported that more than 1,000 asbestos claims - worth in excess of $1 billion by conservative estimates - were filed in Madison County last year. Most were filed by people who had never lived or worked in Illinois.
Stack's order could represent a change in how some out-of-state asbestos claims are handled.
The Post-Dispatch series found that a single asbestos lawsuit can generate $10,000 or more in filing fees, which goes to Madison County's general fund.
"Taxpayers of Madison County are actually being enriched by this docket," Stack wrote in his order to dismiss the lawsuit of Paul Palmer Sr., a Louisiana man suffering from mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of the heart and lungs caused only by asbestos.
"It is a proverbial 'cash cow,'" Stack called the system in his order. "The problem with this is, however, that it is not the function of the courts to make money. This is not a 'business.'"
The order went on to state that if the large numbers of asbestos cases filed actually did go to trial, they would place "an astronomical burden upon the citizens of Madison County."
Asbestos defendants have complained that the thousands of cases filed leave them no time to prepare for trial, so they are forced to settle out of court. Stack touched on this issue as well.
"One of the reasons there are so few trials is because there are so many of these cases pending, somewhat of a 'Catch-22,'" he wrote.
The other two cases Stack ruled on Wednesday, involving plaintiffs from Massachusetts and Florida, also involved mesothelioma. None of the plaintiffs ever lived or worked in Illinois.
The cases were filed by the East Alton personal injury firm of Wise & Julian. Barry Julian, managing partner of the firm, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Each of the lawsuits named more than 80 defendants.
Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, a law firm based in Peoria, Ill., represented one of the defendants, Union Carbide. Robert Barney Shultz is the managing partner at the firm's Edwardsville office.
"Each case has to be decided on its own set of facts," Shultz said Wednesday. "But these (Stack's) decisions were unquestionably the right decisions."
Shultz had asked Stack on Sept. 15 to throw the cases out of Madison County based on the legal doctrine of forum non conveniens - Latin for "the forum is not convenient."
"Where the plaintiff is not a resident, he is accorded less deference in regard to choice of forum," Shultz argued. "He is also accorded less deference if his injuries were not in the state."
In ordering the dismissal, Stack cited Illinois Supreme Court Rule 187, which gives the plaintiffs six months to file their lawsuits in another court.
Stack noted that the plaintiffs lived much closer to courts with asbestos dockets in their own states.
In Palmer's case, Stack wrote that the man's home was "15 miles from the courthouse in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is approximately 700 miles from this court."
Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform, hailed Stack's rulings.
"From our perspective, his (Stack's) decisions indicate he's really making headway in changing the way that things are done in the county," Rickard said. "From our perspective, it indicates that he is applying the law of the state of Illinois in a really fair and even-handed manner."
Reporter Paul Hampel
E-mail: paulh@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 618-659-3639
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