The Law of Unintended Consequences in Asbestos Litigation: How Efforts to Streamline the Litigation Have Fueled More Claims
![handle is hein.journals/mislj71 and id is 539 raw text is: THE LAW OF UNINTENDED
CONSEQUENCES IN ASBESTOS
LITIGATION: HOW EFFORTS TO
STREAMLINE THE LITIGATION HAVE
FUELED MORE CLAIMS
Victor E. Schwartz*
Rochelle M. Tedesco**
Asbestos litigation has become an unwieldy permanent
fixture in the American civil justice system. Courts and
commentators have described asbestos litigation as an
elephantine mass,' a multi-billion-dollar crisis,2 a job-
eating blob3 and a court perennial.4 Although thirty years
ago, many in the legal community knew that asbestos
litigation was going to be big, few would have guessed that
courts today would still be grappling with ways in which to
. B.A (1962) summa cum laude, Boston University; J.D. (1965) magna cum
laude, Columbia University. Victor Schwartz, a former Dean of the University of
Cincinnati College of Law, is a senior partner and chairs the Public Policy Group
in the Washington, D.C., office of Shook, Hardy & Bacon L.L.P. Mr. Schwartz is
co-author of the most widely used torts casebook in the United States, PROSSER,
WADE AND SCHWARTZ'S CASES AND MATERIALS ON TORTS (10th ed. 2000), and
author of COMPARATIvE NEGLIGENCE (3d ed. 1994 & Supp. 1999). He served on
the Advisory Committee of the American Law Institute's RESTATEMENT OF THE
LAW OF TORTS: PRODUCTS LIABILrTY project and has been appointed to the
Advisory Committees of the RESTATEMENT OF THE LAW OF TORTS: APPORTIONMENT
OF LIABILITY and GENERAL PRINCIPLES projects.
B.A. (1997) Hope College; J.D. (2000) University of Michigan Law School.
Ms. Tedesco is an associate in the Washington, D.C., office of Shook, Hardy &
Bacon L.L.P. During law school, she served as Associate Editor of the Michigan
Journal of International Law.
Ortiz v. Fibreboard Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 821 (1999).
2 Christopher F. Edley, Jr. & Paul C. Weiler, Asbestos: A Multi-Billion-Dollar
Crisis, 30 HARV. J. ON LEGIS. 383, 383 (1993).
' Editorial, The Job-Eating Asbestos Blob, WALL ST. J., Jan. 23, 2002, at A22,
[hereinafter Asbestos Blob], available at 2002 WL-WSJ 3383766.
' Richard B. Schmitt, Burning Issue: How Plaintiffs' Lawyers Have Turned
Asbestos into a Court Perennial, WALL ST. J., Mar. 5, 2001, at Al, available at
2001 WL-WSJ 2856111.
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The Law of Unintended Consequences in Asbestos Litigation: How Efforts to Streamline the Litigation Have Fueled More Claims
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