After several years of planning and design, the boat still may not float.
Guy T. Sturino
February 11, 2006
The Senate Judiciary Committee finally launched S852 on the sea of the Senate last week. After days of assault from all sides, asbestos or not, S852 is burning badly, and there may be just too many holes in it to keep it afloat. A juggernaut, S852 was commissioned to conquer the many problems associated with asbestos litigation.
S852 has an icebreaker bow, intended to plow through the frozen court system. Breaking the ice consists of stopping all litigation immediately, unless it is being heard by a judge or jury. In the process, it capsizes Amendment 7 of the Bill of Rights in the bow wave.
Buried in its dark and almost impenetrable hold, is a collection of monetary notes called a ‘trust fund’. How it was determined who will pay, and how much they will pay was established by a subcontractor of the design committee. Unfortunately the subcontractor who designed the ‘trust fund’ had to be subpoenaed to find out how it was constructed. This part of the design has been classified ‘Confidential’, so repairing it may be quite difficult.
S852 is intended to sail for 50 years on the fuel provided by the notes in the hold. Unfortunately, actual fuel consumption data is unavailable and many believe the ship is destined to flounder before it completes its journey. In its wake, along with the dashed hopes of those who have been preparing for court, but not there yet, will be Amendment 7 in the Bill of Rights.
The best thing about the S852 is that it has a deck for many victims who had been left adrift on an old slave ship. By government decree, anyone who was contaminated with asbestos while performing military service could not sue the government, or anyone else, for damages. So getting those people off of the slave ship and on the deck of S852 is a really good thing.
Watching the battle, as a fleet of destroyers attacks S852, is a sad reminder of real life on Senate Sea. There are so many destroyers engaged in attacks, and so many shots from S852s tenders, that the waves are just too high to build a solid dry-dock platform on which to fully inspect the juggernaut.
A really conscientious design team might do this:
1. Scuttle S852.
2. Redefine the mission as: Fully protect all victims of asbestos poisoning at a minimum cost, without endangering the rights of citizens to petition the courts.
3. Using the examples of those states having already made progress in reducing and streamlining litigation, remove any statute of limitations on the right to petition, and institute a ‘pending’ docket for anyone not presently showing symptoms of asbestos disease.
4. Require ‘doctor/patient’ relationship between the certifying physician and the claimant.
5. Set limits on awards which ensure that victims are ‘made whole’ for past and future medical expenses and lost wages, but eliminate a jury’s ability to assess punitive damages, or windfalls for ‘pain and suffering’.
6. Set attorneys fees at payment for ‘billable hours’, to be assessed and paid separate and apart from the plaintiffs’ award.
7. Create a trust fund similar to S852 to ‘make whole’ the military personnel who were exposed to asbestos products manufactured by the same companies being sued in civil court, but are themselves denied access to the courts.
8. If, in the course of a hearing, corporations are found to be criminally negligent or indifferent to the harm caused, they are to be charged and prosecuted in criminal court.
If these design criteria were used, the resulting ship would likely sail effortlessly through the courts and deliver its cargo of compensation to all victims of asbestos disease until the disease has run its course. However, the battle continues with a number of tenders and destroyers fully engaged. No seaworthy flagship, with a contingent of conscientious designers, is to be found. The battle will end, but there is little hope that the war for the relief of asbestos victims will end well.
If S852 is sunk, the military victims of asbestos will remain on their drifting slave ship, waiting for some other ship to rescue them. If S852, with its destructive wake, survives, it may very well not make all the intended ports of call, leaving far too many victims of asbestos to survive on their own. Even more unfortunate, there is no other ship in the builder’s yard.
If only the fleet would raft together, calm the sea, and design a proper ship for the task.
S852 has an icebreaker bow, intended to plow through the frozen court system. Breaking the ice consists of stopping all litigation immediately, unless it is being heard by a judge or jury. In the process, it capsizes Amendment 7 of the Bill of Rights in the bow wave.
Buried in its dark and almost impenetrable hold, is a collection of monetary notes called a ‘trust fund’. How it was determined who will pay, and how much they will pay was established by a subcontractor of the design committee. Unfortunately the subcontractor who designed the ‘trust fund’ had to be subpoenaed to find out how it was constructed. This part of the design has been classified ‘Confidential’, so repairing it may be quite difficult.
S852 is intended to sail for 50 years on the fuel provided by the notes in the hold. Unfortunately, actual fuel consumption data is unavailable and many believe the ship is destined to flounder before it completes its journey. In its wake, along with the dashed hopes of those who have been preparing for court, but not there yet, will be Amendment 7 in the Bill of Rights.
The best thing about the S852 is that it has a deck for many victims who had been left adrift on an old slave ship. By government decree, anyone who was contaminated with asbestos while performing military service could not sue the government, or anyone else, for damages. So getting those people off of the slave ship and on the deck of S852 is a really good thing.
Watching the battle, as a fleet of destroyers attacks S852, is a sad reminder of real life on Senate Sea. There are so many destroyers engaged in attacks, and so many shots from S852s tenders, that the waves are just too high to build a solid dry-dock platform on which to fully inspect the juggernaut.
A really conscientious design team might do this:
1. Scuttle S852.
2. Redefine the mission as: Fully protect all victims of asbestos poisoning at a minimum cost, without endangering the rights of citizens to petition the courts.
3. Using the examples of those states having already made progress in reducing and streamlining litigation, remove any statute of limitations on the right to petition, and institute a ‘pending’ docket for anyone not presently showing symptoms of asbestos disease.
4. Require ‘doctor/patient’ relationship between the certifying physician and the claimant.
5. Set limits on awards which ensure that victims are ‘made whole’ for past and future medical expenses and lost wages, but eliminate a jury’s ability to assess punitive damages, or windfalls for ‘pain and suffering’.
6. Set attorneys fees at payment for ‘billable hours’, to be assessed and paid separate and apart from the plaintiffs’ award.
7. Create a trust fund similar to S852 to ‘make whole’ the military personnel who were exposed to asbestos products manufactured by the same companies being sued in civil court, but are themselves denied access to the courts.
8. If, in the course of a hearing, corporations are found to be criminally negligent or indifferent to the harm caused, they are to be charged and prosecuted in criminal court.
If these design criteria were used, the resulting ship would likely sail effortlessly through the courts and deliver its cargo of compensation to all victims of asbestos disease until the disease has run its course. However, the battle continues with a number of tenders and destroyers fully engaged. No seaworthy flagship, with a contingent of conscientious designers, is to be found. The battle will end, but there is little hope that the war for the relief of asbestos victims will end well.
If S852 is sunk, the military victims of asbestos will remain on their drifting slave ship, waiting for some other ship to rescue them. If S852, with its destructive wake, survives, it may very well not make all the intended ports of call, leaving far too many victims of asbestos to survive on their own. Even more unfortunate, there is no other ship in the builder’s yard.
If only the fleet would raft together, calm the sea, and design a proper ship for the task.
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