$145 Billion proposed for a federal trust fund, 600,000 lawsuits filed, 10 to 20 million people exposed in industrial settings, 30,000 to 50,000 new lawsuits filed a year and scores of bankruptcies. A single case may have thousands of plaintiffs and hundreds of defendants with a settlement value of $600,000,000.00" (Model asbestos case management order, 2005, ABA, p. 15).

Potential strengths and weaknesses, what could the group contribute or withhold: These businesses seem unsympathetic to the public, who are alarmed by the dangerous uses of asbestos in everyday life situations and are angry at companies for ignoring the risk. Industries may try to promote new safety measures to forestall likelihood of further lawsuits. These industries have tried (and failed) on numerous occasions to lobby Congress to pass laws to limit damages awarded to plaintiffs in asbestos-related suits in exchange for 'trust funds' that would give smaller compensations to victims and...
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