Legislative Attempts to Address Asbestos Litigation

Abstract

I am going to talk briefly about the state of asbestos litigation. The problem is nowhere near over in a medical or social sense. You might be astonished to hear this: over 20,000 metric tons of asbestos fiber is still used in the United States every year. These fibers go into products such as gaseous materials, brakes, roofing materials, construction materials, and machinery. These materials will expose new generations of people to asbestos dust. This is just one of the reasons why anybody who knows anything about asbestos understands that the litigation is far from over. The long latency period for asbestos-related diseases is another reason the litigation will continue. The scientific community predicts that we will still see asbestos injuries for close to another fifty years. Lawyers can have a long and prosperous career in the field of asbestos litigation, assuming that Congress does not do something about it.