BuckeyeBlog

The Buckeye state has been a leader in reforming the asbestos liability system, which has wreaked havoc on courts across the country, especially in manufacturing states like Ohio. This week the Ohio Senate took another significant step toward improving the system by passing Senate Bill 370. The bill now goes to the Ohio House of Representatives for its consideration. If the House passes the bill next week, it will go to Governor Ted Strickland to be signed or vetoed. According to a recent Toledo Blade article, Strickland may have some reservations about the legislation.

Mr. Strickland said it’s premature for him to say how he will respond until he sees the final bill. “I will look at it very, very carefully and will try to make the best judgment regarding my response, if in fact it does pass,” he told The Associated Press in Cleveland this week. “I will likely oppose an effort to limit an individual’s right to seek justice and redress under the law.”

As outlined in my recent Buckeye Viewpoint, Ohio has led the nation in reforming asbestos liability to address abuses of the system by plaintiffs’ attorneys and preserve the ability of truly injured plaintiffs to recover in the future. Senate Bill 370 is narrowly tailored to address the situation where plaintiffs attempt to “double dip” by seeking to recover a second (or even third) time for the same injury from different parties. Accordingly, the bill does not “limit an individual’s right to seek justice” in any way.

Tags: asbestos liability, tort reform

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 1:05 pm and is filed under Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.