Co-founder Doug Larkin, who said his organization does not take money from trial lawyers or corporate groups, is doubtful about the trust-fund idea.
"There seems to be more of a history of failed funds than successful funds," since several set up by bankrupt companies have run out of money, he said, though "our organization is not ruling it out." But he said the group wants to see the right to sue preserved.
Officials on both sides of the issue said they remain far apart.
"We have no inherent objection to a trust fund as long as it is adequately funded and fair to all current and future litigants poisoned by asbestos," said Carlton Carl of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America. But he said the numbers talked about before, $140 billion, are "clearly not adequate according to anybody who's looked at the issue."
Insurers, likewise, said they have reservations, especially about funding and the pace at which money would have to be placed into a trust.
Corporate interests, frustrated at the stalemate in Congress, have started trying to limit their liability in state legislatures. In Ohio, for example, a measure passed last month establishes medical criteria that may make it harder for some asbestos plaintiffs to collect.
At the same time, there are indications of growing judicial resistance to asbestos claims, particularly those brought by plaintiffs who can be accused of shopping for a sympathetic forum.
In the past month, judges in Florida and Mississippi have said they would dismiss cases when plaintiffs could not show a connection to the jurisdiction in which their suits were filed, suggesting that huge judgments may be harder to win.
And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit last month rejected a bankruptcy plan worked out by Combustion Engineering Inc. and plaintiffs' lawyers that would have set up a trust fund for the injured and cut off further lawsuits. The court found that this kind of "pre-packaged" bankruptcy, which companies like because it ends their liability, is unfair to certain claimants.
One company that has successfully used a "pre-pack," as such devices are known, is Halliburton Co., whose DII Industries, Kellogg Brown & Root and other affected subsidiaries emerged from bankruptcy protection yesterday.
