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23 June 2020
Mary Elizabeth C. Stern and Lucy P. Allen
NERA has released “Average Dollars per Resolved Claim Continue to Climb: Snapshot of Recent Trends in Asbestos Litigation 2020 Update,” its twelfth annual review of asbestos-related litigation in the United States. Authors Director Mary Elizabeth C. Stern and Managing Director Lucy P. Allen—both leading experts in the economics of torts, product liability, and personal injury—report on a dataset of more than 150 asbestos defendants. Their report describes trends in filings, payments, dismissal rates, and more.
The authors found that trends in 2019 were mixed for defendants. On average, total spending and new filings declined, while average dollars per resolved claim increased. In particular:
In addition, NERA compared the trends in claim filings from asbestos defendants to trends in incidence of mesothelioma diagnoses obtained from the National Cancer Institute Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program. The authors found that mesothelioma incidence increased slightly in 2017 (the most recent year of incidence data), but remained below the levels of the previous eight years.