The NAM and five other business groups filed a joint brief on 9/7/07 urging the Florida Court of Appeals to affirm a lower court decision that held Florida’s Asbestos and Silica Compensation Fairness Act to be constitutional. Enacted in June 2005 to preserve funds for individuals actually impaired by asbestos, this Act requires dismissal of claims by individuals who show no such impairment. As a result, claimants who cannot presently demonstrate impairment may only bring their cases after they develop a physical impairment that satisfies the minimum requirements of the law. We argued that this Act should be upheld as constitutional, as Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal concluded in DaimlerChrysler Corp. v. Hurst, another case in which we filed a brief.
Our brief described the asbestos litigation crisis that led Florida to change its law and the need for courts to dismiss cases where no injury has yet been found. We focused on mass filings by non-sick individuals threatening the truly sick, unreliable medical screenings, and the effect of these claims on solvency, peripheral defendants and the Florida economy.
In May, 2008, the court ruled that the Florida statute could not be applied retroactively to causes of action that have already accrued and that are in litigation. A cause of action is a property right that vests when it accrues to the plaintiff. The statute's requirement to prove an actual malignancy or physical impairment was rejected for those plaintiffs who could show only that they suffered an injury from an asbestos-related, non-malignant disease.