Plaintiffs in asbestos cases put on notice by court
By JACK ELLIOTT JR.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
JACKSON - Defendants in asbestos cases in three southwest Mississippi counties have asked a Jefferson County judge to dismiss the lawsuits or order plaintiffs to provide more information on their claims.
Circuit Judge Lamar Pickard is scheduled to hear arguments Monday in Fayette.
The hearing deals with pending asbestos litigation in Jefferson, Copiah and Claiborne counties. It involves thousands of plaintiffs in and outside Mississippi and hundreds of defendants.
The defendants are mostly companies where the plaintiffs claimed to have been exposed to asbestos.
On Aug. 26, the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled in a case from Bolivar County that such lawsuits must include the names of each defendant being sued, when the plaintiff was exposed and the work site where the exposure occurred. If the information is not provided, the claim should be thrown out, the court said.
The defendants said they received no basic information about each of the plaintiffs. Attorneys for the plaintiffs, according to the court record, said such details would come out when the cases were tried one at a time.
Chief Justice Jim Smith said the information should have been included in the lawsuits.
"This complaint comes to us from plaintiffs who, more than three years ago, filed suit against 137 defendants, who have amended the complaint six times and who are apparently unable to explain to the trial court, this court or to the defendants, exactly who each plaintiff has sued and why," Smith wrote.
Smith said the trial judge should dismiss the claims of all plaintiffs who did not produce the required information within 45 days of the Supreme Court order.
Smith said separate trials should be scheduled for each plaintiff and those cases involving residents outside Bolivar County or outside Mississippi should be transferred to other courts.
The Supreme Court has ruled similarly in lawsuits against the maker of a diet drug. In those cases, the court said it was improper to group plaintiffs together when their claims did not arise from the same incident.
The defendants in Pickard's court are seeking the same remedy.
Marcy Bryan Croft, a Jackson attorney representing defendants in asbestos litigation before Pickard and in other lawsuits across the state and the Southeast, said Wednesday that the defendants had raised similar issues before the Supreme Court's order.
"We were pushing these issues before but we didn't have Supreme Court precedent," Croft said. "It is what we had always said the Supreme Court would do if they addressed these issues. So, it's nice to be validated."
Croft said similar motions are being pursued on asbestos cases across the state.
"It's nice to finally have all this tied together so that we can address these issues and move forward in defense of the claims that should be in Mississippi," she said.
Attorneys for plaintiffs in the case did not return calls to The Associated Press.
Asbestos use in buildings increased substantially after World War II and peaked in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Because asbestos-related illnesses are slow in developing - it can take up to 40 years between the time someone is exposed to the material and dies from it - asbestos deaths will probably increase through the next decade, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Government regulations in the 1970s helped curb the use of asbestos. It is still used, though under heavy regulation. |
