| ABI scheme tops Commons compensation debate
The government has yet to decide on the insurance industry's proposals for a compensation body for mesothelioma claimants. At a debate in the House of Commons yesterday, the scheme's advocate Conservative MP, Oliver Heald, requested the government's position on the proposed scheme which he tabled as Clause 6 of the Compensation Bill. Mr. Oliver Heald (North-East Hertfordshire) (Con): "Does not the Minister recognise that the Barker v. Corus case, which she mentions, was brought by the Government and therefore that she is seeking to overturn with that amendment what the Government argued for in court? We welcome that, but does not she accept that that is hardly joined-up government? Many victims of this crippling disease still cannot trace an employer or an insurer, so they will not be able to make a claim at the moment.
Jury awards widow $10 million in asbestos lawsuit
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. A Newport News Circuit Court jury awarded 10-point-4 (m) million dollars to the widow of a former shipyard worker who died of lung cancer after working with materials that contained asbestos. The verdict in Wanda Jones' wrongful death lawsuit came yesterday, the first anniversary of the death of 60-year-old Buddy Jones. She says the award from three companies that made the materials offers "some justice and recognition for what he went through." Her attorney, Robert Hatten, called the verdict a landmark because one-third of the judgment will come from John Crane Incorporated, which has refused to settle other asbestos cases. Ed Mueller, an attorney for John Crane, said the products were safe. He said ... quote ... "I'd take a piece out and put it around my neck and wear it home." The judgment is split with two other companies: Johns Manville Corporation and Garlock Sealing Technologies.
Hardie fund a mystery that needs solving
WINSTON Churchill described Russia as a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, which can also be applied to the developing debacle around the latest attempt to coax money out of James Hardie for the victims of asbestos poisoning. The riddle is the Tax Office's ruling that the new entity set up by James Hardie - working title: Special Purpose Fund (or SPF) - is not a charity, thereby threatening the December deal to keep money flowing to asbestos victims. The mystery is why this fund had to be set up at all. Why not use the existing charity with an Orwellian name, the Medical Research and Compensation Foundation (MRCF), which has been channelling compensation to James Hardie's victims? And the enigma is: why do investors think James Hardie's liability to its victims has been capped, and are optimistically bidding up its share price? It has not been capped; the liability each year is limited to 35 per cent of cash flow but the time for paying it is open-ended, and on one assessment the potential future claims are equal to the company's entire intrinsic value.
Minority Enterprise Backer Louis Winnick, 85
Louis Winnick, 85, an economist who helped guide the investments of the Ford Foundation and promoted low-income home ownership, died July 29 at a hospice in Manhasset, Long Island. He had mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer that his daughter Pamela Winnick attributed to exposure to asbestos when he worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II. .
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