Since 1980, hundreds of thousands of asbestos lawsuits have been filed in courts across the country.  According to the RAND Corporation’s comprehensive 2005 report, about a quarter of a million asbestos claimants filed lawsuits through 2002.  The vast majority –by some estimates, up to 90 percent – have been filed on behalf of people who do not have cancer or any other physical impairment caused by asbestos. 

The tragedy of the asbestos litigation crisis is that individuals who become sick from asbestos in the future may be unable to get compensation because unimpaired claimants are draining the limited amount of resources available.

Asbestos lawsuits once were limited to shipbuilders, asbestos manufacturers and a few companies in other industries. Virtually all of those original targets of litigation are now in bankruptcy.  In a search for deeper pockets, targeted claims have been filed by trial lawyers against a wider array of defendants that never even produced asbestos.  The financial burden imposed by these lawsuits has helped to drive more than 75 defendant firms into bankruptcy.

It’s the mission of AIA and our members to continue to work in every possible venue to identify contrived abuses in the asbestos litigation system and to advance meaningful and responsible reform.