The Battalion
WORLD & NATION
Wednesday, July 18,1990
Court decision marks major step
toward resolution of liability issues
NEW YORK (AP) — A court order consolidat
ing more than 100,000 asbestos cases marks a
major step in resolving the nation’s biggest prod
uct liability issue amid a climate of growing un
certainty for victims seeking compensation.
Federal judges in New York, Cleveland and
Texas want to remove what they deem a stran
glehold on crowded court dockets and bewil
dering delays in paying compensation for tens of
thousands of Americans killed or injured by de
cades of exposure to asbestos.
Activity on asbestos liability cases has inten
sified in recent weeks since disclosures that a $3
billion trust set up as part of Manville Corp.’s
bankruptcy reorganization had run out of money
to pay new claims.
The activity around the trust has left many vic
tims — some of whom handled asbestos on the
job for more than 50 years — and their relatives
wondering when their few thousand dollars in
compensation will arrive.
“We’ve all been depending and hoping for this
money to be coming,” Shirley Johnson, of Port
land, Ore., who along with her brother and sister
is expecting a check for $8,333 from the trust,
said.“I’m very confused. We can’t seem to get any
information.”
The money is compensation for the 1986
death from asbestos-related lung cancer of their
father, who worked in a Nevada munitions fac
tory during World War II.
Some victims and their families already have
been waiting for up to a decade for compensa
tion. The storm surrounding the Manville trust,
which has 130,000 claims pending, began when it
announced recently that some new claims would
not be paid until the year 2025 or later.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Jack B.
Weinstein in Brooklyn halted payments by the
trust pending a reorganization. Also Monday,
Thomas D. Lambros, chief judge of the U.S. Dis
trict Court in Cleveland created a class action of
all pending litigation nationwide.
Both actions were expected to face challenges.
Lawyers representing more than 1,100 Virginia
shipyard workers who already have settled claims
with the trust challenged the payments stoppage
in a federal appeals court.
Responsible for the litigation is a flaky, white
mineral used widely and without safeguards in
shipbuilding, construction and other industries
from the turn of the century. Asbestos since then
has been determined to cause lung cancer and
other often-fatal diseases.
Product liability lawsuits have driven Manville
and several other asbestos manufacturers into
bankruptcy court protection. Now, more than
100,000 lawsuits are on file in every federal court
and some 500 state courts, and the tide of filings
shows no signs of abating.
The judges would like to simplify the method
by which attorneys investigate individual claims,
reduce delays by defendant companies that claim
they can’t afford to pay asbestos settlements and
limit the amount of money being spent on liti
gation rather than compensation.
But plaintiffs lawyers said a single class action
— one big case that most likely would force a set-
dement in one large pot to divide among victims
— may be unworkable.
Kohl shares
union news
with press
BONN, West Germany (AP) —A
jubilant Chancellor Helmut Kohl
said Tuesday that all major obstacles
to German unification had been
swept aside and said elections for a
united German parliament were
likely in December.
Speaking to reporters the day af
ter he returned from the Soviet
Union with guarantees that a united
Germany was free to join NATO,
Kohl also said he hopes bilateral
treaties with the Soviet Union and
Poland can be concluded by early
next summer.
“The practical problems, which
lay before us on the way to German
unity, have been solved,” Kohl said.
He said elections for a united Ger
man parliament on Dec. 2 were
“presumable.” But whether East
Germany merged with the West be
fore or after the elections had to be
decided by East Berlin, he added.
Kohl also used the occasion to re
assure Germany’s neighbors.
“We are no world power,” he said,
emphasizing that the new Germany
would be embedded in the “Euro
pean security architecture.”
He said he was sensitive to the
concerns of fellow Europeans. He
noted that Britain had gambled “its
very existence” in battling Hitler.
Budget amendment defeated
House curtails attempts at mandatory balance
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House narrowly de
feated a constitutional amendment Tuesday to balance
the budget after opponents said it was a gimmick to
hide the failure of Congress and the president to cut
the huge federal deficits.
The House voted 279-150 in favor of the amend
ment, but it was seven votes short of the two-thirds re
quired to propose a constitutional change.
President Bush, meanwhile, declared that the wors
ening federal deficit meant “the time for game-playing
is over” and set a budget meeting with congressional
leaders at the White House on Wednesday.
Backers of the amendment said they had expected
defeat. Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Texas, said either
way, Congress needed to make tough choices to end a
decade of huge increases in the national debt, which
now tops $3.1 trillion.
“It’s up to us folks,” he said. “If this amendment
passes, it’s going to take guts. If it doesn’t pass, it’s going
to take guts.”
Rep. Larry Craig, R-ldaho, co-sponsor of the amend
ment, said, “None of us want to face the tough decisions
at hand, but faced they must be.”
The amendment would, beginning in 1995, prohibit
government spending from exceeding revenues, or any
increase in government borrowing, unless the require
ments are waived by a three-fifths vote of each chamber
of Congress.
The House defeated, 244-184, a proposal by Rep.
Joe Barton, R-Texas, to extend the super-majority
threshold to any proposal containing a tax increase.
Barton said without his amendment, a balanced budget
requirement would create a bias toward raising taxes.
Rep. Marilyn Lloyd, D-Tenn., said the balanced bud
get amendment would “send a meissage to the economic
markets of our country that this Congress is serious”
about fiscal responsibility.
Bush, in a letter Monday, urged support of the
amendment along with changes in the budget process
to give the president more power, including the line-
item veto.
“Together with political courage and discipline, these
tools are vital to solving the problem of budget deficits,”
Bush said.
The House last voted on a balanced budget amend
ment in 1982, when it fell short by more than 40 votes.
Support for the amendment has grown since then,
largely because of growing frustration over the deficits
and the failure of statutes such as Gramm-Rudman law
to solve them.
But opponents Tuesday said the amendment was a
sham, that its requirements could easily be dodged, and
that delaying the effective date to 1995 amounted to
passing the buck.
“This so-called balanced budget amendment is the
amendment for the truly religious because the balance
to which it refers occurs only in the hereafter,” Rep. Da
vid Obey, D-Wis, said.
Rep. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said “We get the head
lines today, someone else gets the headache of making
it work tomorrow.”
Rep. Jack Brooks, D-Texas, said the amendment
would solve none of the nations fiscal problems except
give the courts an excuse to begin dictating the nation’s
fiscal policy. “Judicial tyranny waiting to happen,” he
said.
President Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, has
not proposed a balanced budget and has touted the
amendment so long as it doesn’t take effect too quickly.
The White House said it supported the House version,
although it objected to language making it harder to
raise fees for government services or to increase gov
ernment borrowing.
Space program progress depends correction of hydrogen leak
Prosecutors near end
of Mayor Barry’s trial
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pros
ecutors neared the end of their
month-long drug and peijury
case against Mayor Marion Barry
on Tuesday after two women — a
former Carter administration
aide and a Barry friend testifying
under court order — outlined a
history of drug use with him.
They were the ninth and tenth
witnesses to testify that they saw
Barry use illegal drugs.
Doris Crenshaw, who was a
White House small business aide,
said she had snorted cocaine pow
der, smoked crack cocaine and
used cocaine-laced cigarettes with
Barry — including an episode at
the 1988 Democratic National
Convention. She said she began
using drugs with him in 1985.
Bettye Lynn Smith, who was
flown in from Tennessee under
court order, testified she had
used cocaine with Barry many
times and supplied him with it for
vears, including less than a month
before his Jan. 18 arrest in an FBI
sting operation.
Reluctant to tesdfy against
Barry, whom she described as “a
close personal triend of mine
Smith appeared in court only ai
ter being ordered by a U.S. mag
istrate to return to the nationi
capital to testify. She had bee;
undergoing treatment for sirs
at a psychiatric hospital in Chafe
nooga.
Crenshaw said she and tlj,
mayor used cocaine at the Dem
cratic convention in AtlamJ
where Barry was heading the Dal
trict of Columbia’s delegation.
“We used it at the hote
Crenshaw said. “It was powdei
cocaine.” p
Crenshaw, who met Barr
when both were active in thecitl
rights movement, described hit;
as “a very kind and understand!
ing and sympathetic person.”
She said she first offered tit
mayor powder cocaine at herG
pitol Hill home where V
snorted it... off business cards.''
Crenshaw also testified thatslfe
used drugs with Barry on Dtt
22, 1988, the day Barry’s ties
Charles Lewis, who later pleade;
guilty to drug charges, becaiK
public.
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Senators: panel likely
to fully fund collider
WASHINGTON (AP) — The su
perconducting super collider will
likely be fully funded for the first
time by a Senate appropriations
panel Wednesday, Sens. Phil
Gramm and Lloyd Bentsen said
Tuesday.
The senators said Sen. Bennett
Johnston, D-La., chairman of the en
ergy and water development sub
committee, supports the $318 mil
lion President Bush asked for the
super collider in his 1991 budget.
Bentsen called Johnston’s support
a “big step.”
Gramm said other subcommittee
members also expressed support for
the giant atom smasher, to be built
south of Dallas near Waxahachie.
“I think we have an excellent op
portunity for the first time to get the
full presidential request for the
SSC,” Gramm said. The Senate in
the last two years has cut spending
requests for the super collider.
Both senators warned there are
no guarantees this time.
“You never can count the chick
ens before the eggs hatch,” Gramm
said.
Bentsen said, “But it’s a bigfcl
when you’ve got the chairman!'
your corner as we do.”
Gramm continued, “In the p
we have worked this hard. I thinf;
have steadily built a base of s.;i
port.”
Gramm, a Republican, said
and Bentsen, Democrat, dividedt
job of building support in the Sen;
along party lines.
The House last month appro;
ated $318 million in 1991 funds '
the super collider. Of that, $169r
lion is devoted toward begini
construction.
There are other Texas projeos
the $20.8 billion bill. But Gi
said, “'Phis is the big one.”
The $318 million will allow
Department of Energy to finish
sign work and testing of the sup
conducting magnets, Bentsen said
The 40-foot long magnets
drive protons around a 54-mile
derground oval. Scientists hoped|
atoms will break apart when thee i
lide, yielding clues to the fundam
tals of matter.
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NASA tries to launch shuttle within two months
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) —
NASA said Tuesday it will attempt to
launch at least one shuttle in the next two
months, and possibly two if the agency is
lucky and Atlantis’ hydrogen leak can be
corrected at the pad.
“Not only do we see the light at the end
of the tunnel, but I believe we are out of the
tunnel,” William Lenoir, head of NASA’s
space flight program, said.
Earlier in the day, President Bush ex
pressed support for NASA Administrator
Richard Truly’s handling of the troubled
National Aeronautics and Space Adminis
tration.
“I have confidence in NASA,” Bush said.
“It’s a perilous business, I guess, anytime
you put people up there into space, but the
record has been very good.”
Bush said he “went semi-ballistic” when
he read weekend news reports suggesting
there would be an investigation of NASA.
The space agency has been hit by the
most severe criticism since the 1986 Chal
lenger disaster because of the shuttle prob
lems and mirror imperfections on the Hub
ble Space Telescope that make a precise
focus impossible.
“These shots are highly complex,” the
president said in Washington. “We have
Deen the leaders in space and I want to see
us continue to be the leaders in space.”
The Bush administration on Monday an
nounced it would form an outside commit
tee to look at long-term space goals.
Lenoir said NASA is not under any pres
sure from congressional critics “or any
where else.” The space agency needs con
gressional support to continue the $32
billion space station, a planned Earth study
called “Mission to Planet Earth,” and the
president’s announced goal of a permanent
manned base on the moon.
“We’re all motivated I would say, more so
than pressured, to find what’s wrong, to fix
it and go fly, and that’s exactly what we
have done,” Lenoir said. “We’re not hurry
ing to do it, but on the other hand we’re not
going to take a year off and study it to
death, either.”
NASA plans during the next few days to
begin trying to repair Atlantis’ fuel line at
the launch pad, Lenoir said.
Engineers believe the leak is somewhere
around a flange on the external tank side of
a 17-inch diameter valve. The valve is in a
pipe that carries fuel from the tank to the
main engines.
If the flange’s seal is not cracked, work
ers will tighten the 48 bolts in that area, Le
noir said. A third tanking test will be con
ducted next week to see if that was enough
to resolve the problem.
Atlantis’ leak was discovered during the
first tanking test June 29, which prompted
NASA to ground the three-shuttle fleet.
Columbia’s leak was detected during fu
eling for a May 30 launch attempt.
“If it passes, then we have been luckylK
cause in all honesty we do not expect wlu
we can do on the pad to fix the problem
Lenoir said. “It costs us nothing to try am
see, so we will.”
Provided there are no leaks, NASA«
attempt to launch Atlantis on a secret ml
tary flight around August 10 or 12, id
lowed by Columbia’s astronomy mission:
mid-September.
Columbia’s leaky plumbing was replace:
with components taken from the newsw
tie Endeavour, under construction in Call
fornia. That leak was located around ask
on the orbiter side of the 17-inch-diaraeif
valve, Lenoir said.
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