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Resolution of local asbestos-related lawsuits is bogging down due to the key defendant's shortage of funds, attorneys for plaintiffs said last week.
John Herbert, a partner with Harter, Secrest & Emery, has settled approximately 30 cases on behalf of victims of asbestos exposure and their survivors and has more than 100 pending. He said that uncertainty about the Manville Personal Injury Trust's ability to pay its share of settlements has upset a delicately balanced process.
"To make the system work," he said, "all of the defendants have to feel that they're paying their fair share, but no more than their fair share."
The trust was established by the Manville Corp., a Denver-based company that once was the world's largest asbestos producer.
Manville was driven into bankruptcy in August 1982 in the face of 16,000 asbestos-related lawsuits. Emerging from bankruptcy court protection in 1988, the company created the trust to assume its liabilities as a defendant in some 90,000 asbestos-related suits nationwide.
Since then, the trust has paid out most of its available cash, $842 million, and committed itself to pay $132 million more to settle 22,386 cases.
While the fund's architects estimated that payments would average $25,000 per claim, the norm has been more than $43,000.
The depleted Manville trust figures into a series of recent developments in asbestos litigation nationwide.
In New York two weeks ago, federal Judge Jack Weinsten issued a stay,...