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title: "Asbestos lawyers are a cancer on US industry. "Asbestos litigation's…"
date: 2024-01-13
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships shared a link.
---

# Asbestos lawyers are a cancer on US industry. "Asbestos litigation's…

*January 13, 2024 · Facebook*

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[https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1672&context=faculty](https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1672&context=faculty){target="_blank"}
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Asbestos lawyers are a cancer on US industry.\
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\"Asbestos litigation\'s final descent into madness has come in the form of judicial recognition of anticipatory claims on behalf of persons who have not yet suffered injury.\
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Departing from long-standing tradition in tort law, courts have sought to provide immediate compensation to plaintiffs who are asymptomatic and in good health for consequences that they may suffer in the future as a result of either exposure to asbestos-or the development of asymptomatic biological changes in their lungs. 6\
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Plaintiffs have devised three stratagems for receiving \"pay me now\" compensation.\
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First, they argue that those exposed to asbestos should be entitled to immediate recovery based on the fact that, upon exposure, plaintiffs are at increased risk of contracting asbestosis, mesothelioma, or lung cancer.7 These claims seek recovery for the value of physical harms based on the possibility that plaintiffs may develop these diseases in the future.\
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Second, plaintiffs claim that quite apart from any physical consequences that they may actually suffer in the future, they are\
entitled to damages for the present fear that they experience concerning their future well-being.\' These claims are premised on the tort of negligent infliction of emotional distress and seek to draw on that theory for recovery. 9\
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Third, claimants contend that those exposed to asbestos are ipso facto entitled to medical surveillance to determine whether they are experiencing changes in their health that might be related to the development of some asbestos-related disease over the\
course of time.\'\"\
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All of these theories are superficially plausible, if not downright appealing. However, any attempt to embrace them within the mainstream of traditional tort law iis manifestly unwise. In truth, they constitute radical departures from longstanding norms of tort law, advanced in recent years to bludgeon a disfavored group of\
defendants. But the wrongdoing of a defendant, or defendants, does not justify creating legal doctrine that is substantively unfair, especially when doing so strikes mercilessly at another group of plaintiffs who, when the funds to pay damages run dry, will be denied recovery for real, rather than anticipated, ills.\"\
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[https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1672&context=faculty](https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1672&context=faculty){target="_blank"}
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