Asbestos lawsuits encompass cases of asbestos-related diseases, when the victims of asbestos exposure or their families sue employers (or asbestos manufacturers, landlords and leasing agents) for showing negligence in exposing them unprotected to the harmful effects of asbestos. Actually, asbestos lawsuits represent the largest group of product liability litigation.
Generally, the purpose of asbestos lawsuits is to get financial compensation for an asbestos-related disease or death. Compensation can include the cost of medical treatment, lost wages, funeral costs, etc. Very often, punitive damages can be claimed if the wrongdoing of the defendant is proven.
The latter gave ground to cases when healthy individuals filed suits claiming compensation just because they had been in such environment and estimated that there is a risk for them to develop an asbestos-related disease.
Not all states permit filing a suit for future damages, but there have been cases which raise the question if such claims are reasonable. There have been cases when the asbestos manufacturers were simply milked by greedy plaintiffs, and sometimes the manufacturer went bankrupt because of this.
There have been cases when millions of dollars have been awarded to heavy smokers, who allege that their lung cancer is a result of asbestosis due to an exposure to it decades ago, rather than to their bad habit.
But these cases of foul play did not divert public opinion from showing compassion to the asbestos victims. In some of the most heavily publicized asbestos lawsuits, the victims died of cancer before hearing the verdict. Such was the case of Bell v. Dresser Industries Incorporated, when two of the five plaintiffs died during the process. The plaintiffs were awarded $130 million, one of the largest asbestos verdicts in the US.
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