Educating Senator Frist

George W. Bush has declared that tort reform will be a major part of his forthcoming campaign. In the Senate, majority leader Bill Frist has said he will make it a "personal priority" in the present session of Congress to deal with what he calls "the current asbestos litigation crisis." Frist intends to do this by persuading his colleagues to enact Orrin Hatch's Fairness in Asbestos Injury Resolution Act, known as the FAIR Act to its advocates, and as the Frist/Hatch asbestos bailout bill to its detractors.

In a speech before the Senate in November, Frist described the Johns-Manville Corporation and W.R. Grace & Company as "reputable companies" that had been driven into bankruptcy because of asbestos litigation. What he apparently did not know was that Johns-Manville had not only been aware since the early 1930s that incurable asbestos lung disease was disabling and killing its own workers but also had instituted a corporate policy not to inform sick workers about X-ray findings showing that they had developed asbestos disease.

In an infamous memorandum, the medical director of Johns-Manville described his company's policy toward unimpaired workers with X-ray evidence of lung damage as follows: "The fibrosis of this disease is irreversible and permanent so that eventually compensation will be paid to each of these men. But as long as the man is not disabled it is felt that he should not be told of his condition so that he can live and work in peace and the Company can benefit by his many years of experience." Is it any wonder that when presented with such evidence from internal company documents, jurors in what Senator Frist calls "the flawed tort system" began meting out punitive damages against Johns-Manville for outrageous and reckless misconduct?

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