Defendant Sues Lawyers and Wins

A West Virginia jury popped two Pennsylvania asbestos lawyers with a $429,240 verdict for conspiring with a West Virginia radiologist to manufacturer asbestos lawsuits against a railroad operator. This amount will likely be tripled because of the RICO violations.

This is a blog for personal injury lawyers and victims. I’m not in the habit of speaking well of the asbestos defendants because, you know, most would shoot their next-door neighbors in the back of the head if it meant making a few extra bucks… at least that is how they acted back in the day when they could have done something about this stuff.

But, apparently, the lawyers ran morally amok and got a doctor to essentially lie about 11 patients’ finding of asbestos. The claims never went anywhere but the company spent a lot of time defending these manufactured lawsuits. So bravo to the railroad company for fighting back.

Before trial, the whole thing was made more convoluted when the defendants’ lawyers were hit with discovery sanctions and barred from relying in any way on 8,417 pages of documents to use in their defense (and counterclaim apparently).

The tort reform crazies always have these crazy theories about corrupt lawyers. They also sound Oliver Stone conspiracy crazy to me. I always think that it is brought to you by the same fine people that think President Obama was born in Kenya. But look, they got this one right. If they are proven right on the Kenya thing, I will have to reconsider my world view on just about everything.