A U.S. Appeals Court ruling has affirmed a verdict from 2004, which required insurance firm Travelers Cos. to pay a settlement of more than $500 million to victims of diseases resulting from asbestos exposure. The case has been part of a rollercoaster of reversals, including an overturn by the Supreme Court in 2009, a 2011 U.S. Bankruptcy Court decision that again mandated payout to the victims, and another reversal a year later by a federal district court.
The decade-old settlement ordered Travelers to compensate victims harmed by products manufactured by Johns Manville Corp., for which Travelers was the primary insurer. Johns Manville Corp., once the largest supplier of asbestos and asbestos-containing products, was hit with thousands of personal injury lawsuits stemming from its distribution of the harmful toxin, causing the company to file for bankruptcy in the 1980s. The case against Travelers involved the claimants’ accusation that the insurer misrepresented Johns Manville’s knowledge of asbestos’s hazardous properties.
The recent decision by the U.S. Appeals Court reversed the 2012 federal district court ruling, which cited a failure to meet particular conditions of the settlement as the reason for reversing the U.S. Bankruptcy Court’s order. The U.S. Appeals Court disagreed with the federal district court on account of the case’s timeline, stating that Travelers did not raise its arguments in a timely manner.
“It’s taken a long time,” acknowledged attorney Joe Rice, who represented some of the victims in the case. “[Travelers] tried to wiggle out of paying the claimants.”
Asbestos, which was banned in the 1970s, is a naturally occurring mineral that was prominently used in a variety of industries. When friable, asbestos can be easily disintegrated, creating a toxic dust that is detrimental to respiratory health. Numerous diseases can develop as a result of asbestos exposure, including mesothelioma, which has an extremely high mortality rate. Because the disease has a lengthy latency period, there are approximately 3,000 mesothelioma diagnoses made each year, with many of its victims quickly succumbing to the illness.