Key Take-aways from San Fran Perrin Asbestos Summit

Perrin Conferences hosted its latest Asbestos Summit in San Francisco, last week. The well attended conference was littered with defense and plaintiff attorneys, each using key cases to point fingers at the other for evidence of well… concealing evidence. Amid the fanfare, rumors and speculation, we found a few key take-aways worth noting:

  • The “Garlock” case we’ve blogged about previously continues to be closely watched. The case suggests that victims may become “perjury pawns” if it turns out that indeed, plaintiff’s lawyers are having their clients say one thing in court, and another during trust settlements. 
  • Plaintiff’s attorneys are pointing to a recent case involving BASF and Cahill that demonstrates a defendant who allegedly concealed relevant evidence. According to the Wall Street Journal, a former chemist employed with BASF “testified about the company’s mid-1980’s collection of data, analyses and reports about the contamination, a collection of material which had disappeared.” The documents were later discovered in a Cahill storage facility.