The need for asbestos-related legislative action is undisputed. Over 700,000 asbestos claims have already been filed with little sign of abatement. At present, the almost 300,000 claims before the courts imperil the system’s ability to provide victims with timely relief, and inadequate compensation is all but certain with over seventy defendant corporations now in bankruptcy. Such discouraging developments led the United States Supreme Court to push for a national alternate dispute resolution forum to assist with the overwhelming asbestos caseload, often referred to as an “elephantine mass.”
Congress responded with an amended form of the 2003 FAIR Act, proposed by Senator Patrick Leahy. The bill is novel in that it completely preempts personal injury tort claims involving asbestos related injuries. Claimants seeking to recover must file with an administrative bureaucracy, established solely to assess and distribute damages. This administrative body serves as trustee for a national trust fund financed by asbestos defendants through annual payments based on income and liability percentages. In order to recover, claimants must satisfy certain medical criteria, and damages are awarded or limited according to the illness incurred.
The FAIR Act bandages a wounded area of civil jurisprudence. It provides expeditious relief to asbestos victims, guarantees funding in place of insolvent defendants, reduces liability for potential defendants, and allows insurance companies to accurately assess the potential liability within an industry. These remedies are bittersweet, however, because the assignment of asbestos claims to administrative agencies, where litigants are not afforded fact-finding juries, is incompatible with the Seventh Amendment.
This Note will illustrate the applicability of the Seventh Amendment to personal injury asbestos tort actions. It will explain that this constitutional guarantee prohibits Congress from using non-Article III tribunals to abrogate jury trials in the context of asbestos tort cases. Moreover, this Note will prove that by undermining the Seventh Amendment, the FAIR Act sets alarming precedent and further threatens the role of the jury in American jurisprudence. . . .