Illinois (IL) Asbestos And Mesothelioma General, Medical, & Legal Resources

Illinois (IL) Asbestos Resources & Information:

Cook County, Illinois--where Chicago is located--is considered a "judicial hellhole" by corporations and their pet legislators in the State House as well as Washington D.C.

That's actually good news for asbestos plaintiffs, however.

Nonetheless, Judge William Maddux, who hears many of these cases, has sidelined all asbestos actions in which the plaintiff does not show any actual symptoms, which he considers to be "junk lawsuits".

What makes this controversial is the fact that asbestos diseases have long "latency periods"--the amount of time between initial exposure and the development of symptoms. A plaintiff filing suit today may not have symptoms, but may develop them later--by which time it will be too late to recover anything.

On the other hand, not everyone exposed to asbestos does contract a disease.

It is an argument that will probably continue until the underlying societal problems that actually drive litigation--lack of access to health care and inadequate social safety nets for asbestos victims--are addressed. Currently in the U.S., that seems highly unlikely.

Illinois Industries

There are over sixty businesses, factories, schools and other institutions in Illinois that have been named defendants in asbestos-related lawsuits. One of these, oddly enough, has been Pepsi Cola.

What does the manufacturing process of a soft drink have to do with asbestos?

Nothing, actually. It has more to do with the unrestrained, unregulated merger and acquisition feeding-frenzy of the past 26 years that allows one corporation to own and control completely unrelated industries such as a defense company, several media companies and a soft drink manufacturer. While it arguable made these corporations more powerful than the United States government, there is a flip side: when Corporation "A" takes over "Corporation "B," it also acquires B's liabilities--including any and all pending lawsuits. This is essentially what has happened with Pepsi Cola.

While Pepsi-America is a noteworthy defendant, most of the businesses and industries on the list are places commonly associated with asbestos exposure: oil refineries (including Amoco, Citgo, Mobil, Shell and Standard) and numerous power stations.

Another location where asbestos was a problem was the Great Lakes Naval Base. Naval veterans make up a substantial number of those who suffer from mesothelioma, as do anyone who has worked in maritime industries. Because of the enclosed environment below decks, the chances of inhaling concentrated, friable asbestos fibers--much of which was of the amphibole variety--were greatly increased. A recent study at that National Cancer Institute showed that those who spent time working aboard naval and civilian vessels had a "significantly higher" chance of contracting mesothelioma.

This type of asbestos insulation was also found in many aging public buildings, including schools and even hospitals. The city of Kankakee had asbestos problems at a parochial school, a state DOT garage, the city hospital and even in the water system (due to the asbestos cement used to manufacture water pipes between the 1930s and 1970s).

Despite the prevalence of asbestos in Illinois industries, there is no indication of naturally-occurring asbestos formations anywhere within the state's boundaries.

Illinois Mortality Statistics

Currently, Illinois is the fifth most populous state in the U.S.; as of the 2000 census, the number of people living in Illinois totaled 12.8 million. During the preceding two decades, the state lost a total of 1,731 lives to asbestos diseases.

Statewide, over three times as many asbestos victims suffered from mesothelioma as they did from asbestosis, which is much more treatable. Asbestosis is much more common than mesothelioma in general; however, it is not malignant, and if caught early on, victims may live out their normal lifespan.

This may be an explanation as to why actual mortality due to mesothelioma is so much higher than asbestosis. Another explanation may be due to the more prevalent use of amphibole asbestos, especially tremolite, which was a frequent contaminant of vermiculite.

Illinois (IL) Legal Resources: Asbestos, Asbestos Cancer & Mesothelioma

For a long time, Illinois was associated with pro-plaintiff decisions in regards to asbestos-related cases. More specifically, Madison County had been known as pro-plaintiff, due in no small part the ten years of rulings presided over by pro-victim judge Nicholas Byron, who presided over 953 such cases in 2003 alone. Cases involving asbestos-related lung cancer often resulted in multimillion-dollar awards, such as the $250 million judgment issued in 2003 by a jury in Byron's courtroom in 2003.
 
Because of the pro-victim stance and the high return in rewards, Madison County was criticized by former U.S. Attorney Griffin Bell; he noted that the county had 25% of the nation's asbestos suits. According to Gretchen Schaefer, spokeswoman for the American Tort Reform Association, "Madison County is a magnet for asbestos litigation that has no connection to that jurisdiction" (http://www.asbestoslawblog.com/recent-legal-cases-60-illinois-judge-hands-over-asbestos-docket.html). Due to the pressures related to this, when Nicholas Byron retired, his successor was urged to tighten up on cases.

Other counties in the area also became less relaxed in allowing asbestos-related litigation. For example, Cook County, which has one of the largest state court systems in the US, began sidelining cases filed by people who do not display actual symptoms of asbestos-related diseases. Around the same time, Cook County Judge William Maddux began regularly denying requests for continuances, in effect giving lawyers and lawyers about a year to prepare for trial, which can be a challenge since many cases involve more than 50 defendants.

Although these court trends have made it more difficult to file lawsuits in Illinois, those suits that are able to come to trial do still tend to fall in favor of the victim. For example, as recently as 2006, in Nolan v Weil-Mclain, the plaintiff sued several manufacturers of asbestos-containing products over the death of her husband. She was awarded over $2 million.

There is no specific legislation about the damages that can be awarded to Illinois victims of mesothelioma. However, in Kochan v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp. (1994), when the defendant argued that the award violated the constitutional ban on excessive and unreasonable punishment, attorneys for the plaintiffs, a group of Illinois construction workers, were able to convince the appeals court to preserve the original monetary judgment.

In addition to aforementioned Nolan case, there are other instances in Illinois of cases in which the individual bringing suit is the executor of the estate of a person who has died from mesothelioma. For example, in 1999 in the case of Spain v Owens-Corning Fiberglass Corp., Shirley Spain, as administrator of the estate of her husband, sued several manufacturers of products containing asbestos and was awarded $1.8 million. This and other similar lawsuits indicate that the state tends to be pro-victim even in cases in which the individual bringing suit is not the victim of mesothelioma but someone acting on his or her behalf.

One of the most recent asbestos-related cases to come to the attention of the media is the 2007 case of Yanchick v. Rapid American Corp. et al. Originally filed in the Circuit Court of Cook County in August, 2006, the case was later removed to the federal court for the Northern District of Illinois. The victim in the case has sued over 130 companies, but that's not why this made news. It made news because it brings up the issue of second-hand asbestos exposure. More specifically, it asks the courts to decide whether an employer has a legally recognized responsibility to protect a non-employee spouse or relative from asbestos exposure outside the workplace.

Those interested in filing lawsuits should know that the statute of limitations for personal injury law in Illinois is two years. This two-year period begins, according to a "Modified Discovery Rule", when the victim knew or should have known that the injury was wrongfully caused even if they didn't know it was actionable. Wrongful death cases fall under the same statute of limitations and follow the same discovery rule. There is no specific statute about asbestos.

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