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Fast Facts on Asbestos

  • An estimated 730,000 individuals have filed asbestos claims across the country against more than 8,400 corporate defendants as of 2002. [RAND Institute for Civil Justice, 2005]
  • Defendants spent about $70 billion on asbestos litigation through 2002.  At least half of the $70 billion spent was related to individuals having nonmalignant conditions.  [RAND Institute for Civil Justice, 2005]
  • The number of silica-injury lawsuits jumped from fewer than 1,000 in 2000 to 19,389 in 2003.  [Bloomberg News, February 3, 2005]
  • In a recent study by Academic Radiology, fewer than 5 percent of chest X-rays that had been entered as evidence by trial lawyers in asbestos lawsuits were found to show damage when reviewed by a board of independent doctors.  In the original trials, doctors paid by trial lawyers to serve as "expert" witnesses concluded that 96 percent of the X-rays showed asbestos-related abnormalities. ["The Great Asbestos Deception," San Diego Union-Tribune, August 13, 2004]
  • Of a record $260 billion in tort costs in 2004, asbestos claims accounted for about $5 billion. [Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, 2005]
  • As many as 78 companies are estimated to have filed for bankruptcy due to asbestos liability costs. [“Current Issues in Asbestos Litigation,” American Academy of Actuaries, February 2006]
  • Between 52,000 and 60,000 jobs have been lost due to asbestos-related bankruptcies. [Sebago Associates, 2003]
  • Asbestos litigation costs have reduced defendants' levels of investment by $10 billion and resulted in 138,000 jobs not being created. [RAND Institute for Civil Justice, 2002]
  • Each worker displaced due to asbestos-related bankruptcies will lose, on average, between $25,000 and $50,000 in wages over his or her career because of periods of unemployment and the likelihood of having to accept a new job at a lower salary. [Sebago Associates, 2003]
  • Indirect costs to local communities of asbestos-related bankruptcies to date are as much as $2.1 billion. Those costs are from additional lost jobs, decreases in property values, unemployment and worker retraining costs and increases in health care costs. [NERA Economic Consulting, January 2003]
  • For every 10 jobs lost due to asbestos-related bankruptcies, 8 additional jobs are lost in local economies. [NERA Economic Consulting, January 2003]
  • Estimates of future total costs for asbestos litigation range from $145 billion to $210 billion. [RAND Institute for Civil Justice, 2002]

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