Illinois County Does Booming Business In Asbestos Lawsuits
From the Associated Press
Few of the tourists who drive old Route 66 through this rural Illinois town are aware of its true economic engine: a booming business in asbestos lawsuits that attracts law firms from across the country.
Since 2005, those lawsuits have generated a $14 million surplus for Edwardsville and solidified Madison County's place at the center of a long-running national debate over personal-injury claims.
A decade after former President George W. Bush came here to tout class-action lawsuit limits, the number of asbestos suits has reached record levels, with caseloads that surpass specialized courts in far larger cities such as New York, Chicago and Baltimore.
Lawsuits have also proliferated in smaller industrial communities such as Beaumont, Texas, and Charleston, West Virginia, but Edwardsville is the smallest and perhaps most unlikely of the bunch, with just 24,000 residents. The city 30 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri, is better known for its historic downtown and the scenic drive along the nearby Mississippi River.
From 2012 through 2014, an average of 1,500 lawsuits claiming injury or death from asbestos were filed in Madison County — a nearly threefold increase from just five years earlier. By comparison, a Philadelphia court that specializes in personal-injury complaints involving birth-control devices, denture creams and other consumer products averaged a little more than 300 asbestos lawsuits over the same time period — in a city nearly 65 times larger than Edwardsville.
Madison County has the highest rate of lawsuits filed in Illinois, 8.2 per thousand residents in 2013, according to a report issued this month by the Illinois Civil Justice League. That's twice as many as filed in Cook County, home to Chicago.
The group Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch rallied Wednesday at the state Capitol to highlight concerns about the legal system, including the asbestos courts. They will find a sympathetic ear in Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is pushing legislation to make it more difficult for plaintiffs to "venue shop," saying people should only file lawsuits in the county where a company has an office.
Read more in our daily News Update...
From the Associated Press
Few of the tourists who drive old Route 66 through this rural Illinois town are aware of its true economic engine: a booming business in asbestos lawsuits that attracts law firms from across the country.
Since 2005, those lawsuits have generated a $14 million surplus for Edwardsville and solidified Madison County's place at the center of a long-running national debate over personal-injury claims.
A decade after former President George W. Bush came here to tout class-action lawsuit limits, the number of asbestos suits has reached record levels, with caseloads that surpass specialized courts in far larger cities such as New York, Chicago and Baltimore.
Lawsuits have also proliferated in smaller industrial communities such as Beaumont, Texas, and Charleston, West Virginia, but Edwardsville is the smallest and perhaps most unlikely of the bunch, with just 24,000 residents. The city 30 miles north of St. Louis, Missouri, is better known for its historic downtown and the scenic drive along the nearby Mississippi River.
From 2012 through 2014, an average of 1,500 lawsuits claiming injury or death from asbestos were filed in Madison County — a nearly threefold increase from just five years earlier. By comparison, a Philadelphia court that specializes in personal-injury complaints involving birth-control devices, denture creams and other consumer products averaged a little more than 300 asbestos lawsuits over the same time period — in a city nearly 65 times larger than Edwardsville.
Madison County has the highest rate of lawsuits filed in Illinois, 8.2 per thousand residents in 2013, according to a report issued this month by the Illinois Civil Justice League. That's twice as many as filed in Cook County, home to Chicago.
The group Illinois Lawsuit Abuse Watch rallied Wednesday at the state Capitol to highlight concerns about the legal system, including the asbestos courts. They will find a sympathetic ear in Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who is pushing legislation to make it more difficult for plaintiffs to "venue shop," saying people should only file lawsuits in the county where a company has an office.
Read more in our daily News Update...