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Asbestos Cases
The Court is inundated with an enormous volume of cases filed on behalf of Lehigh Valley residents claiming injury or death as a consequence of alleged workplace exposure to asbestos. Nearly 1,500 individual asbestos cases have been filed to date. It is expected that the Court will ultimately face in
Judge Panella and Asbestos Division Staff |
excess of 3,000 individual asbestos cases. State and federal courts nationwide have experienced a similar flood of asbestos litigation, prompting the United States Supreme Court to observe that the "elephantine mass of asbestos cases...defies customary judicial administration...". In order to meet the challenge of the enormous volume of asbestos cases, the Court has created an Asbestos Division headed by Judge Jack A. Panella. Judge Panella administers pending asbestos cases through all critical pretrial phases and presides over complicated "cluster trials" where upwards of 10 or more individual cases proceed to trial against a multitude of asbestos companies in a single trial proceeding on liability and damages. The Asbestos Division also consists of an Asbestos Docket Manager, which was created in 2001 to meet the needs of the growing asbestos docket. The office is held by Robert Eyer. The primary mission of the office of the Asbestos Docket Manager is to assist the Court in efficient and timely disposition of pending asbestos cases.
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