IBMs Legal Woes Reflect U.S. Tort Environment
International Business Machines Corp., the world's top provider of computer hardware, is facing legal woes from hundreds of its former employees, and some insurance experts are saying it's part of a larger trend in the U.S. tort environment where many trial lawyers zero in on workplace toxins.
Robert Hartwig, senior vice president and chief economist at the Insurance Information Institute in New York, commented that this type of claim is not new in the greater scheme of things “people becoming ill from exposures from some sort of chemical in the workplace. This is not altogether a path-breaking type of litigation,” Mr. Hartwig observed.
But, he added, IBM's legal troubles do open up a new avenue in this “well-trodden path,” where occupational injuries wind up in the tort system. “And in many cases, they wind up being very expensive,” he noted.
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