MR. WOOTTON: My name is Jim Wootton and I am the President of the Institute for Legal Reform here at the U.S. Chamber and on behalf of the Chamber we want to welcome everybody for coming today and engaging in this very important conversation about the sources and perhaps some of the solutions to the asbestos problem that is facing American industry today.
The subject of asbestos is a very complicated one for people who are in the legal reform business because on the one hand, unlike almost any other substance perhaps except lead paint, it is a substance that is no longer used in any way that would make it a continuing problem. But it is a continuing problem because of either exposure during the time that it was used or what has now become more troubling, it has become part of sort of litigation industry that is prolonging the life of the asbestos compensation puzzle, beyond what most people expected. Most people expected that the demographics of asbestos would mean that there would be an end, because people who were exposed, they would age, they would be out of the work force, whoever had a latent problem would be discovered and they would be compensated. And now with new litigation techniques and new recruiting techniques, this problem seems to be expanding at a time when a lot of people predicted it would not be.
It has become such a crisis for some companies that their stock price has been very adversely affected. The future of some companies has been placed in doubt because of what they can expect to be demanded of them in a compensation system that is operating in the tort system today. And so there is a very concerted effort on the part of policy makers and now I think appreciated by both sides of the aisle and all political persuasions that needs to be some reformation of how we compensate people who have a disease that is associated with asbestos.
Lots of people are in the midst of trying to find that solution, it is illusive, there have been plenty of press reports about how difficult a search for that solution is, but I think it is fair to say that this conversation here today should contribute to that debate. One of the things that I think a lot of people are experiencing is that they don't even really understand the issues involved in the problems that have to be solved and this kind of conversation is going to support that search. We are particularly grateful for people from the hill joining us today. You all are hearing from lots of different people about what you might be asked to do in the coming months in this area and it will, I hope, benefit you to be better informed about the issue and about what needs to be dealt with to solve the problem.
I am always grateful for Judy Pendell who makes putting these programs together seem effortless. I know it is a little bit like watching the duck go across the top of the pond, it looks very serene on the surface, but there is an awful lot of activity under the water. Judy is responsible for that activity and I think her credibility with the academic community and the policy making community is what makes her involvement in our program here at the chamber so productive.
She is currently a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, dealing mostly with legal reform and she is a help to us here at the chamber in shaping our research program. Judy is going to be the moderator of the panel and she is going to do the introductions and without further adieu, Judy. Thank you all.
MS. PENDELL: Thank you. I will just say before we begin, that I have been working on legal reform since 1982, and this is an interesting issue because it has had a life in many stages of that 20 year time span, where it has been high on people's screens, it has been addressed by the congress and then it has sort of taken a back burner because of expectations that it was nearing resolution. But now it definitely has a new life and I am hoping that for those of you that are new to this issue, some of you are here who I know who have been working on this issue for a long time. This will be a useful perspective on what is happening in the courts today and out of the courts, relative to asbestos.
A couple of words about format. Each one of our speakers representing the research organizations will present their findings and then we will take questions only relative to that study. The bigger question, like how did this happen, we would like to have you hold to the end of the presenters. I would like to also say that Dr. Steven Carroll, who was to be part of this program from Rand was taken ill and he will not be participating today, but Deborah Hensler will be doing all the Rand presentation. After the three studies have been presented to you, our two experts from the bench and from the law schools will give some opening comments, they will join us here on the stage and then we will open it for broad discussion.
I would like you to identify yourself, there will be roving hand mikes here, I would like you to identify yourself and feel free to ask any specific panelist or generally so people can dive in if they have something to say in response to your question. We would prefer you to keep it to questions, a little commentary is fine, but we would like for the benefit of all the people who are attending to hear the good questions and hear what our panelists have to say in response.
This program is being webcast on the Chamber web page. There is an event page on that. So, there are some people who are in front of their computers who are watching this. If they have questions, there is an email address, AsbestosConference@USChamber.com, that's AsbestosConference@USCHAMBER.com. You can email your questions, they will be presented to me and I will raise the questions with the panelists.
Having told you all of that, our first speaker will be Dr. Deborah Hensler from Rand. She is continuing as a consultant with Rand, having been with Rand for twenty-eight years. For six of those years she was Director for the Institute for Civil Justice and she was founder of Rand's Survey Research Group. She has been conducting research on public policy issues in the civil justice area since 1979 and is without dispute one of the most noted experts in the field of civil justice today.
She is a fellow of the American Academy of Political & Social Science. She is on the Editorial Board of the Law & Society Review and is a consulting editor of Psychology - Public Policy & Law. She has a Bachelor's degree from Hunter College and PhD in political science from MIT. Dr. Deborah Hensler.
DR. HENSLER: Thank you, very much for that gracious introduction, Judy. One of the very positive things of working on civil justice issues over the last quarter of a century now has been the opportunity to get to know and work with Judy Pendell.
I was struck coming into this session by the poster and the title for the conference, Understanding Asbestos Litigation, and I thought to myself, what would I tell somebody in a few words that they needed to know to understand the litigation. So, here is my list, it is big, it is growing, it costs a lot of money and under any scenario it will cost more in the future and most importantly there are significant questions about whether the dollars that are being spent are serving the purposes with the tort system it is supposed to serve.
What I am going to do this morning, hopefully quite quickly is summarize for you the findings of a Rand study on the state of asbestos litigation that has now been ongoing for about two years.
Rand first studied asbestos litigation in the early 1980's and for many years the Rand figures from our early studies, particularly figures on the cost of asbestos litigation, figured prominently in public policy debates about asbestos litigation and to some extent in case law and judicial opinions on asbestos litigation. But it was not until a few years ago, as concern about asbestos litigation mounted, that Rand was able to raise sufficient funds to take a new look at the asbestos litigation issue.
And even for some of us, like myself, who had been tracking the litigation in the interim, some of our findings have been quite
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