While the number of new asbestos lawsuits has dropped precipitously in Madison County, a deluge of filings is keeping clerks in a Delaware court working nights and weekends to keep up.
A clerk at New Castle County Superior Court, in Wilmington, Del. said an upsurge in asbestos cases started in June.
Her report appears to bear out a recent statement from an attorney with SimmonsCooper law firm of East Alton.
The attorney, Mike Angelides, told the Belleville News-Democrat that SimmonsCooper had expanded to New York, Chicago and Delaware.
Angelides said, “We are just filing them in different places.”
SimmonsCooper, however, cannot actually file suits in Delaware. Only a Delaware attorney can do that.
An attorney for a defendant in some of the new Delaware asbestos suits said the firm of Bifferato, Gentilotti and Biden filed most of the suits.
In Delaware, the third name stands out. Joseph R. Biden III, son of U. S. Senator Joe Biden (D-Delaware), is a partner in the firm.
The senator’s son, 36, goes by the nickname Beau. According to “Only in Delaware,” a political news sheet, he plans to run for Delaware Attorney General next year.
Beau Biden earned a law degree at Syracuse University in 1994. From 1997 to 2002, he worked on criminal cases for the U. S. Attorney in Philadelphia.
He left the government and joined Monzack and Monaco, a firm in Wilmington that his father helped to start.
Last year he joined Bifferato, Bifferato and Gentilotti. The firm dropped the second Bifferato from its name and added Biden’s name.
Delaware court seeing upsurge in asbestos filings
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