Court Opinion

ID: 9709676
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:52:59.104175+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:50.793657
License: Public Domain

concurring and dissenting:
I concur with the majority opinion except for part 3 relating to punitive damages. For the reasons set forth in Part IV of Judge Friendly’s opinion in Roginsky v. Richardson-Merrell, 378 F.2d 832 (2d Cir.1967) I would hold that there should be no right to seek punitive damages under Pennsylvania law in cases where claim is made for compensatory damages as a result of injury or death caused by exposure to asbestos products.
The enormity of the asbestos related disease problem is one of national scope. As of 1982, there were over one thousand eight hundred and fifty claims which seek damages as a result of asbestos product exposure in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and new cases were being filed at the rate of seventy-five per month. The number of *378cases nationwide were over sixteen thousand.1 It has been estimated by the United States Department of Labor that thousands of persons will become disabled or die from asbestos related disease each year until well into the next century. The problem is compounded by the fact that the physical impairment resulting from asbestos exposure often does not exhibit itself until twenty to thirty years after the exposure.2 As a result of these claims, several implicated defendants have declared bankruptcy and others have exhausted their insurance liability coverage.
Faced with this complex social problem and in the absence of legislative or executive solutions, the courts cannot simply react to the problem in the isolation of its traditional case-by-case methodology. While the judges of our state courts are in the midst of examining this problem,3 our decisional law in the meantime cannot ignore the economic impact of current declarations. To permit the award of punitive damages is, in my opinion, counterproductive to the just goal of best providing that reparations are most fairly awarded to all of the present and future claimants who can demonstrate compensable injury or disease. The right to pursue an award of punitive damages in these eases will further clog the trial courts since we cannot suppose that defendants will voluntarily pay a sum as punitive damages, nor could we blame injured plaintiffs who, once the right to punitive damages is established, insist on a trial in order to assert their claim. Thus, one result may be more trials and fewer settlements. More importantly, faced with evidence that the industry’s resources may not be sufficient to satisfy just claims for compensatory damages by all who have or will suffer injury or disease, it seems an unfair allocation of limited resources to permit those who first find their way *379through the crowded turnstiles to obtain a monetary prize to the detriment of others down the line who may find the well of compensation dry.

. See Pittsburgh Corning Corp. v. Bradley, 499 Pa. 291, 294, 453 A.2d 314, 315 (1982).

. Ibid., 499 Pa. at 294, 453 A.2d at 314.

. Justice Roberts of our Supreme Court is chair of a committee sponsored by the National Center for State Courts which is denominated the "Judicial Working Group on Asbestos Litigation.”