 Asbestos Litigation
Undoubtedly many hundreds of thousands of people have already died from asbestos-related diseases but, rightly or wrongly, financial settlements have been juridically enforced internationally at a level which has bankrupted some industrial companies and threatened some of the World's largest insurance companies . Growing disputes are foreseen for the coming decades as current trends indicate that the rate at which people are diagnosed with the disease will most probably increase very significantly.
The RAND Institute for Civil Justice has recognized that asbestos litigation is the longest running mass tort in U.S. history. Recent sharp increases have been confirmed in the rate of filing asbestos claims in the United States, as have concomitant increases in the number and types of firms named as defendants, and also an escalation in the costs of the litigation to these defendants. (Analysts have estimated that the total costs of asbestos litigation in the USA alone will eventually reach $200 billion.) Research supported by RAND highlights questions as to whether compensation is really distributed fairly among claimants and in proportion to their true need, and, furthermore, whether the actual responsibility for paying compensation is being allocated justly among defendants and in proportion to their perceived and/or proven degree of culpability.
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