“A Subbasement of the Legal World”
Wednesday, April 1st, 2009
One of the more pernicious “tort reform” proposals is to create an asbestos-disease “trust fund” to replace a citizens’ right to a jury trial. Those suffering asbestos-related disease such as mesothelioma would be compensated form the trust fund. A look at how other workmen’s compensation funds are working is not reassuring.
In the New York Times, N.R. Kleinfield and Steven Greenhouse take a look at workers’ compensation in New York. They call it “a subbasement of the legal world.” The reporters talked to one man who waited two years to get his teeth fixed. Another had to postpone elbow surgery for a year. One man injured a falling off a scaffold. He struggled for three years to get compensation, and when he was denied all benefits even the insurance company lawyers were stunned.
Senator Specter’s proposed trust fund would not work exactly the same way as the New York workers’ compensation fund, but there is potential for many of the same problems — a slow, overworked bureaucracy and limited funds.
April 1, 2009
Barbara O’Brien
