Crown Holdings

Takeda and Crown [38] (which is pushing legislation to escape responsibility for people injured or dying from asbestos),

38] <a href="http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12172/justice-denied-71-alec-bills-2013-make-it-harder-hold-corporations-accountable-ca">http://www.prwatch.org/news/2013/07/12172/justice-denied-71-alec-bills-2013-make-it-harder-hold-corporations-accountable-ca</a>

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<h2 style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px 0.5em; padding: 0px; line-height: 1.25; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Average Americans Pay the Price</h2>

An increasingly major player in advancing the ALEC tort reform agenda is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its Institute for Legal Reform, both of which are members of the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force.

A big priority for the Chamber this year has been legislation narrowing access to the courts for asbestos victims. The ALEC "Asbestos Claims Transparency Act" was first adopted by members of the ALEC Civil Justice Task Force in 2007 and was introduced in four states in 2013, in many cases supported by <a href="http://www.shb.com/news_events_detail.aspx?id=1467" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">testimony</a> from Shook Hardy & Bacon attorney Mark Behrens on behalf of the Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform. The effort would benefit corporations like Crown Holdings, a Fortune 500 company with over $8 billion in annual sales that has worked with ALEC for years to legislate its way out of compensating asbestos victims, as well as ALEC member Honeywell International, which has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/business/honeywell-says-asbestos-verdict-was-more-than-it-had-disclosed.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">faced significant</a> asbestos liability in recent years.

Asbestos-related diseases kill at least 10,000 Americans every year, in many cases from mesothelioma, an incurable and painful cancer caused by exposure to asbestos. For decades, asbestos was used for insulation and industrial purposes, and the diseases particularly affect veterans, firefighters, construction workers, and individuals who worked in factories with high-heat machinery.

Asbestos company executives knew from at least the 1940s that asbestos was deadly but covered it up for half of a century. For example, an internal memo from a subsidiary of ALEC member Honeywell in 1966 <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/business/honeywell-says-asbestos-verdict-was-more-than-it-had-disclosed.html" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">stated</a>, "if you have enjoyed a good life while working with asbestos products why not die from it?" The disease can take between 20 and 50 years to manifest, so individuals exposed decades earlier are only discovering the illness now.

Like the ALEC-supported voter ID laws that spread across the country in recent years, supporters of the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act claim the law is necessary to stop fraud -- despite no persuasive evidence of significant fraud or abuse. The law is couched in terms of "transparency," but is actually designed to save corporations money by delaying justice for asbestos victims and enacting unnecessary procedural hurdles for getting their day in court.

The bill could allow corporations like Crown Holdings or Honeywell to delay a lawsuit until a victim files claims with any other asbestos or personal injury "trust funds," which are accounts set up after a company goes bankrupt to pay claims to injured parties. This requirement, advocates say, is intended to drag out a case until after a sick victim dies -- an especially pointed concern given that asbestos cancer victims usually die within a year after being diagnosed.

In December of 2012, Ohio became the first state to pass the ALEC asbestos bill, which the Chamber <a href="http://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-chamber-applauds-passage-landmark-202800487.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">publicly applauded:</a> "'As Ohio goes, so goes the nation,' and we hope this will result in a domino effect," said Lisa Rickard, president of the U.S. Chamber's Institute for Legal Reform. The Wall Street Journal editorial board -- which includes Stephen Moore, an ALEC "advisor" -- <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324640104578161472087716126.html" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">published</a> an editorial in support of the legislation.

Consumer and worker advocates expect more states to introduce versions of the Asbestos Claims Transparency Act in 2014. A parallel bill has been introduced on the federal level and recently passed the House Judiciary Committee (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/opinion/one-sided-bill-on-asbestos-injuries.html?r=0" target="blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">prompting a response</a> from the New York Times Editorial Board). Testimony presented to Congress from attorneys at Caplin & Drysdale <a href="http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/113th/03132013_3/Inselbuch%2003132013.pdf" target="_blank" style="border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">has identified the ALEC</a> connection.<p style="border: 0px; margin: 1em 0px; padding: 0px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 19.2px; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">=http://www.startribune.com/asbestos-victims-oppose-company-s-push-for-liability-shield-in-state-law/139335403/A national effort by an $8 billion can manufacturer to shield itself from costly asbestos lawsuits has reached the Minnesota Legislature, triggering criticism from victims' advocates, who say the campaign puts a single corporation's interests over people who have been harmed by the deadly material.Philadelphia-based Crown Holdings Inc., which has three manufacturing plants in southern Minnesota, is seeking to change state law to prevent more asbestos claims stemming from a 1960s merger.The company, also known as Crown Cork and Seal, says it has been unfairly harmed by decades of asbestos legal fights that have cost it $700 million in claims and lawyer fees and $1 billion in higher borrowing costs. "We're trying to protect our company from an unfair situation," said William Gallagher, Crown's general counsel. "Blanket successor liability as posed to us is very unfair."Victims and plaintiffs' attorneys in Minnesota say the proposal, which could get a Senate vote as early as Thursday, is the company's attempt to change the rules to skirt its legal obligations. They say it would not only harm victims in Minnesota but set a dangerous precedent for other corporations."Any individual such as yourself or a corporation, if they make a mistake, they ought to pay for their mistake," said Michael Sieben, a plaintiff's lawyer whose firm has handled thousands of asbestos cases.Crown has had about 150 asbestos cases in Minnesota in the past 15 years but only a couple in the past year, according to Sen. Mike Parry, R-Waseca, lead sponsor of the bill. Crown Cork officials say a primary goal of the legislation is to help repair its reputation with Wall Street."To me this is common sense," Parry said. "How much do you make a company pay that had no knowledge, that was not in the asbestos business and never intended to be in the asbestos business?"Health problems stemming from asbestos exposure can take decades to be detected. Lawsuits related to asbestos comprise the longest-running mass litigation effort in U.S. history, with legal costs for businesses and insurers of $70 billion, according to a Rand Corp. report from 2002.Over the past decade, Crown has paid lobbyists in states across the country to help cap its liability -- in essence exempting it from future lawsuits. The company's argument, that it's an innocent successor, has gained traction in 15 states where the legislation has passed, including Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota.The company has been helped by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a business-friendly group that helps craft model legislation for use in legislatures across the country. Minnesota is one of five states considering the proposal this year.Crown's 1963 merger involved a rival with a separate manufacturing operation that made insulation containing asbestos. Under Minnesota law, the merger left Crown with both the assets and legal liabilities of its acquisition, even though Crown never directly manufactured asbestos. It sold the portion of the company that manufactured the material within months after the purchase.Even though it doesn't mention Crown Cork by name, the bill narrowly targets the company's interests. Still, the legislation could apply to other successor companies in acquisitions that took place before 1972, but only if they didn't manufacture asbestos after the merger.
Old concernsThe bill specifies 1972 because that's the period when the federal government started regulating asbestos as a health risk, said Mark Behrens, a Washington, D.C., attorney who has advised Crown and works with ALEC on tort reform."A company like Crown that merged in the early 1960s had no idea that its little $7 million deal would eventually result in $700 million in litigation costs," Behrens said.Opponents say that's not quite right. They say that the company Crown bought had asbestos-related workers' compensation claims as early as the 1950s and 1960s, and that the health concerns related to asbestos were known even back then.Sue Vento, the widow of former U.S. Rep. Bruce Vento, who died in 2000 from an asbestos-linked disease unrelated to Crown, said she fears the bill could be tweaked later to strip all forms of corporate responsibility for asbestos exposure. "It's a bad idea because it doesn't consider the interests of people who end up with these illnesses, nor does it consider the interest of their families," Vento said.The Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee approved the bill earlier this month in a party-line vote. It is expected to pass the Republican-controlled Legislature with relative ease. Both sides have already started asking Gov. Mark Dayton for his support.
Brad Schrade • 612-673-4777<div>
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