Workers from almost every city in the country have been swept up in legal wrangling over how sick they are from working with asbestos. The dispute centers on what compensation is available if they only have minor signs of asbestos disease, detected on X-rays taken for lawyers rushing them through mass medical screenings in union halls.

Court dockets nationwide are filled with more than 300,000 asbestos lawsuits, and as many as 70,000 new ones are added each year. Most are workers or retirees invited into medical screenings by lawyers offering quick money.

Insurance industry studies show that as many as 80 percent of the claims are filed for workers who feel no symptoms of disease. The remaining 20 percent are for former asbestos workers or their relatives who are near death with lung cancer or mesothelioma, a fast-killing cancer of the linings of the lungs, heart and abdomen.

Nationwide debates are raging among the largest lawyer groups, industry, the insurance lobbies, big business and physicians. Within weeks, the battle is expected to spread to the hearing rooms of Congress. The Republican-led House and Senate are expected to give favorable consideration to industry-written restrictions on new medical criteria for defining asbestos disease and which victims will be permitted to file suit. The focus of most of these debates is the mass medical screening of workers who might have dealt with asbestos.

The Post-Dispatch and most other major newspapers run scores of ads each year from law firms announcing the screenings. Radio and late-night television spout the same messages.

More than 700 law firms across the country have helped organize screenings of workers possibly exposed to asbestos or dangerous chemicals, according to a study last year by the Insurance Research Institute.

The Hazelwood example

At least four days of screenings were held last year at the union hall for Local 837 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers in Hazelwood. The gatherings had more the atmosphere of a retirement party than an all-day medical screening to determine whether the mechanics were dying of yet-to-be-detected disease caused by asbestos.

These men and a handful of women had put in 20, 30 or more years on the assembly lines of the Boeing, Ford and General Motors plants here. With the functionality of an Army induction center, various rooms in the union hall had been converted into stations where medical technicians were creating medical files on the workers.

At two desks, technicians tested pulse and blood pressure. Three other desks were set up to extract medical histories, as far back as the workers could remember. In another part of the makeshift operation, the most experienced surveyors were coaxing workers to remember every job they'd ever had - especially any job that might have put them, at any time, anywhere near asbestos in furnaces, boilers, pipes, production lines, operations where asbestos was being stored, used or removed. Even walking beneath or by asbestos in any form was "important," the workers were told.

The crucial piece of hardware to this operation was a 60-foot-long burgundy trailer parked outside the union hall's main door.

The trailer, which has "ASBESTOS TESTING" and a toll-free number painted on each side, was driven up from Mobile, Ala. Alabama is the home base of at least a dozen of these $100,000 screening units run by eight separate firms. More are based in Texas, California, Georgia and elsewhere.

"We were in Nashville and Indianapolis last week, and we'll be in Milwaukee, Dayton and Latrobe, Pennsylvania, next week," the driver said, proudly showing a map covered with scores of dots. "It has been a great year, and it's only half gone."

"Better than the lottery"

The "mobile clinic" has several examination stations separated by faux paneling. In addition to the X-ray machines and processing equipment, there are two stations with tubes attached to monitors and computers that are used to perform pulmonary function tests. If an X-ray shows a shadow in the lungs, the workers are given the pulmonary function test before being sent back inside the union hall to see a physician.

For a group in their late 50s, 60s or 70s, the workers appeared healthy. None complained of lung cancer or great difficulty breathing or any of the other symptoms of asbestosis or mesothelioma.

Two men and a woman said they worked with asbestos insulation years earlier and thought it was smart to get a checkup. Sixteen other workers or retirees who were interviewed admitted it might be a way to add a little cash to their retirement funds.

"I saw the notice in the union newsletter and said, 'Why not?'" said an automotive worker from Ford. Sitting on the tailgate of his shiny, new Chevy pickup and lighting a fresh cigarette off the one he had just finished, he added: "It's better than the lottery. If they find something, I get a few thousand dollars I didn't have. If they don't find anything, I've just lost an afternoon."

Standing nearby, a Boeing worker 10 days from retirement volunteered, "The lawyers said I could get $10,000 or $12,000 if the shadow is big enough, and I know just the fishing boat I'd buy with that."

Asked if he'd ever worked with asbestos, he said, "No, but lawyers say it's all over the place, so I was probably exposed to it."

"We're doing it as a favor"

The screenings at Local 837 were set up by Goldenberg, Miller, Heller and Antognoli, an Edwardsville law firm. Throughout the day, two lawyers from the firm hovered around the men being questioned at the various desks. The lawyers held screenings in March and again in December.

"We're here because the president of the retirees club called us and asked if we'd set up the screening. We're doing it as a favor," said Randy Gori, one of the lawyers.

"He said what?" Claude Barnes, the president, said. "Hell, they called me a half-dozen times to let them set this up. I didn't think it could do any harm and maybe some of the guys would get a little money. But it was the lawyers who wanted to do this."

In the two screenings in March, about half of 600 men and women examined "came back positive for asbestos-related disease," said Martin Mengarelli, the other lawyer at the screening.

In December, the firm did another screening at the hall, and about 25 percent of the 140 people screened "had signs of illness," Gori said.

When asked who his firm was going to sue on behalf of these more than 325 newly discovered asbestos victims, Gori answered with blunt honesty, "Anyone who made products with asbestos who hasn't gone bankrupt yet."

Barnes, when interviewed last month, said he got two settlement checks already, "one for $280 and another for $320." He said that was after the lawyers took their cut. He says he has no idea how much he'll eventually get but, "I'm guessing a few thousand dollars if I'm lucky."

Meanwhile, he said he feels fine.

"I was tested positive and I haven't felt bad," Barnes said. "I don't have a breathing problem. Four or five of my officers tested positive and they say they feel fine."

Barnes and the others have given up the right to sue again if they were to become seriously ill with lung cancer or mesothelioma. Those ailments can cost $300,000 to $500,000 to treat.

"We're gambling that we never get sick," he said. "We were gambling when we took that test."


Lawyer touts benefits of screenings

Will Miller, a senior partner in the law firm that ran the screenings, said the positive aspects of the examinations shouldn't be ignored.

"Critics of screening say law firms do it just to bring in business and, in reality, that may be correct, but people are often helped by the results of the screenings," Miller said.

He cited the 740 St. Louis aviation and automotive workers his firm screened last year.

"The final diagnosis of the December testing isn't in yet," he said, "but included in the 300-plus people that had asbestos-caused abnormalities, we also identified 32 cases of lung cancer, one case of mesothelioma and 20 cases of nonasbestos-related cancer."

Many members of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America conduct medical screenings for various purposes.

Richard Middleton, past president of the association, said, "Standards for screenings must meet high medical criteria.

"I think medical screenings, when they're done properly, can be a tremendous benefit to workers," Middleton said. "However, when they're done by people who aren't concerned as much about the workers as they are identifying potential lawsuits ... and they simply use that information to treat these people like cattle, that's wrong."

Middleton said he knows of no complaints against screening brought to the association's ethics committee.

"The legal profession should be doing a better job of policing its own," he said.

Some of the hundreds of law firms engaged in this activity do the expensive multistep screening that apparently was done at Local 837 last March. But, "many firms used smoke and mirrors to conjure up diagnoses of disease that may not exist," the Insurance Research Institute's report said.

The most aggressive firms are based in Texas, the Carolinas and California. Most acquire help from local law firms in parts of Texas and Mississippi and in Madison County in Illinois - venues where juries have been shown to be generous to injured workers, the institute reported.

The push for tort reform from President George W. Bush's White House and now from the Republican-controlled Congress is forcing many firms to clean up their act and be more judicious when doing medical screenings, the report said.

The screening activity was hot and heavy in the '70s and '80s before major asbestos-using corporations like Johns Manville, W.R. Grace, Federal Mogul, Pittsburgh Corning and U.S. Gypsum sought bankruptcy protection.

With those deep pockets gone, plaintiffs' lawyers shifted to the second- and third-tier targets - those companies that sold, used or distributed products that contained asbestos. Now, many of them have also have become bankrupt because of the personal injury suits that have been filed.

Texas firm screens here

Last year, the Texas-based law firm of Provost Umphrey screened hundreds of construction workers in St. Louis.

"We screened 559 members of the building trades unions at two separate halls," said Larry Sartin, national director for occupational disease programs for Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers. "We did carpenters, pipe fitters, insulators, painters and sandblasters. We got about 100 asbestosis cases and another hundred cases of silicosis from guys who were sandblasters."

Sartin, who has five full-time people to set up screenings throughout the nation, works from an office in the law firm's headquarters, but he said he's paid by the union.

Provost Umphrey screened more than 10,000 workers in 2001, Sartin said.

"We used to get (a) settlement pretty quick, but now with 25 or so companies bankrupt, it can take three or four years," he said.

If their claims work like most of the others that are spawned by mass screenings, suits will be brought against between eight and 20 different companies who, at any time, sold products containing asbestos. For those with suspicious shadows on their X-rays - perhaps pleural plaque - the companies may settle for from $400 to $1,200 per person from each of the companies sued. If asbestosis can be claimed, the money could double or triple those amounts or more.

For lung cancer or mesothelioma, it could be a big payday, with settlements often in the millions. It is rare that any of the cases ever go to trial.

Some lawyers eschew screenings

Many trial lawyers, including St. Louis asbestos specialist Andrew O'Brien, refuse to do screenings; they work closely with individual clients. Many of these lawyers are angered that the courts are being swamped with cases of workers who don't feel ill or don't appear to be impaired.

"There is a limited amount of money available to properly compensate people who are really sick from asbestos disease," O'Brien said.

He thinks consideration should be given to "the needs of those who are seriously ill" by not "flooding the courts with those who are not sick today and may never become impaired to the point they can't lead a normal life."

One of O'Brien's clients was Luke Roth, who died a year ago this month from lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos at one of the four St. Louis plants that processed vermiculite ore into insulation. The ore, tainted with a virulent asbestos fiber called tremolite, came from the W.R. Grace mine in Libby, Mont.

A father of three, Roth, 48, was a manager with a national company that sold drugstore franchises. He also ran George W. Bush's caucus campaign in Iowa.

Roth, who was interviewed shortly before his death, said he was exposed 25 years ago while working at the now-abandoned J.J. Brouk and Co. plant on Kingshighway. "It was a summer job and dusty beyond belief, but no one told us that the dust contained asbestos," said Roth, who grew up in Webster Groves.

"I'm shackled to this," he said then, holding the plastic tube running from an large oxygen tank in his home in Des Moines, Iowa, "and I won't get to see my children grow up."

Joseph J. Brouk, who owned the plant, insists that his vermiculite came from South Africa. But government documents obtained by the Post-Dispatch show that Grace shipped more than 321 shipments totaling 57 million pounds of Libby vermiculite to the St. Louis plant.

"I'm dying, and I want to hold Grace accountable," Roth said before his death. "I can't take them into court because they filed for bankruptcy protection. I'll get no apology. I'll get no admission of guilt and I'll get nothing for my children. I'll never even get my day in court."

Doctors decry some lawyers

Dr. Michael Harbut has treated hundreds of miners from the Iron Ranges of Minnesota and Michigan. Years of pulling tremolite-contaminated taconite out of the mines have sentenced hundreds of men and women to live shackled to tanks of oxygen, he said.

"These people need help, but too many lawyers are dedicated to filling their own pockets rather than getting justice for their clients," said Harbut, who is medical director for the Center for Occupational and Environmental Medicine in Southfield, Mich.

"These lawyers come in and sell the union leaders a bill of goods, get these guys to sign an agreement, which gives them a few dollars and the lawyers a lot more," he said.

Dr. David Egilman has testified as an expert witness in more than 100 trials, "mostly on behalf of the injured worker," but also on the side of several asbestos companies.

"Some lawyers are great, and their efforts to help people injured by chemicals, asbestos or dangerous practices in the workplace may, in many cases, be the only way to eliminate the hazard," said Egilman, a specialist in occupational medicine from the Boston area.

"But all too often these medical screenings are little more than rackets perpetrated by money-hungry lawyers," he said. "Most workers usually don't know what they're getting involved in."

Plaintiffs' lawyers typically receive 25 percent to 50 percent of a settlement, and even though the settlements are small for the unimpaired victims, for the lawyers, their cut adds up to big money.

"The lawyers promise them money if they sign the papers. They may get $1,000 or $1,500, but what happens years later when the shadow on the X-ray develops into full-blown asbestosis and the poor guy has to spend $5,000 a month on medication and oxygen?" Egilman asked. "You can't go back and sue the same companies."

Can screenings lead to harm?

Egilman is worried that the screenings can be dangerous.

"The first rule of medicine is do no harm, and the screenings can do harm in a variety of ways," he said. "The first harm is to the actual person being screened who can be unnecessarily frightened by being told they have a disease, when they don't really have one, or being told that their risks are greater then may actually be."

Adam Gonsoulin was frightened. He worked in the construction industry for most of his 67 years. In 1998, he and other members of the building trades unions in Port Arthur, Texas, went to an asbestos screening set up by a local law firm.

Soon after, Gonsoulin got a letter from the law firm holding the screening telling him that he had some disease caused by asbestos and should see his doctor, according to court records. Seven months later, he killed himself with a shotgun. A suicide note to his son said it had been a long seven months and "I don't want to be an invalid."

The note was written on the back of the forms the law firm wanted him to fill out so a lawsuit could be filed. The physicians who examined the Gonsoulin's X-rays said the man had no sign of asbestos disease.

If certain special interest groups have their way legislation will soon be passed eliminating most asbestos cases. This law should only
apply to cases not yet on file when it is signed. If you worked in an industrial setting (i.e. steel mill, chemical plant, auto plant) prior
to 1973 and have never been tested for asbestos or came back negative more than 2 years ago, you may be eligible to be screened.

Memo: To reach Andrew Schneider:
E-mail: aschneider@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8101