According to a report by consulting firm KCIC, Madison and St. Clair Counties saw the most asbestos cases filed in the nation in 2020.
KCIC’s Asbestos Litigation: 2020 Year in Review report became available Thursday and lists Madison and St. Clair Counties at the top of the 15 jurisdictions with the most asbestos cases filed last year.
“Illinois - and Madison County in particular - continues to be the epicenter for asbestos filings,” the report states.
According to the report, asbestos filings for 2020 as a whole decreased 11 percent compared to 2019. There were 4,137 cases filed in 2019 and 3,685 cases filed last year total. Prior to 2019, asbestos filings had declined by an average of about 8 percent per year since 2016. Then filings from 2018 to 2019 remained stagnant before the 11 percent drop.
“Not all jurisdictions experienced a decrease in filing activity in 2020,” the report states. “Madison County, Ill., remained fairly consistent with just under a 1% increase compared to 2019.”
Despite the decrease in filings nationwide, Madison County saw 1,168 new asbestos cases filed, which was an increase of 0.8 percent from 2019. St. Clair County had 424 new asbestos cases filed, which was an increase of 12.5 percent from 2019.
“Madison County remains the top jurisdictions for this litigation,” the report states, “with nearly three times as many filings as the next highest jurisdiction.”
Coincidentally, the next highest jurisdiction is one county over.
The report states that the concentration of all filings within Madison County also increased from 28 percent in 2019 to 32 percent in 2020. The percentage of total cases in the other top 15 jurisdictions stayed almost constant while the percentage of lawsuits in other jurisdictions decreased from 20 percent in 2019 to 16 percent in 2020.
Madison County also had the highest number of mesothelioma cases filed with 879 lawsuits, which is a 12.6 percent decrease from 2019’s 1,006 mesothelioma cases filed.
St. Clair County did not make the list of top mesothelioma cases filed, but Cook County is ranked number five and St. Louis is number eight.
“Over 80% of 2020 mesothelioma filings were in these top 10 jurisdictions, with 48% being filed just in Madison County, Ill.,” the report states.
On the other hand, St. Clair County saw the highest number of asbestos lung cancer cases filed with 408 filings, an increase of 10.9 percent from 2019. Madison County had the second highest number of lung cancer cases filed with 275 filings, an increase of 95 percent. St. Louis was ranked third for lung cancer filings with 147 cases filed, an increase of 6.5 percent. Cook County had 24 lung cancer cases filed, which is a decrease of 14.3 percent, and ranked number nine on the list of top lung cancer jurisdictions.
“Unlike the situation with mesothelioma, where the majority of jurisdictions saw decreased filings, half of the top 10 lung cancer jurisdictions experienced an increase in filings between 2019 and 2020 - some of which were quite significant,” the report states.
“The largest nominal increase between 2019 and 2020 occurred in Madison County, where lung cancer filings increased by 134 filings, or 95%. This increase was due to substantial increases by both Simmons Hanly Conroy, which more than doubled its lung cancer filings there, and by Napoli Shkolnik, which filed 10 times as many lung cancer cases in Madison County in 2020 than in 2019. Increases like these led to 2020 filings in the top 10 jurisdictions increasing by 17% compared to the 9% increase in lung cancer cases nationwide,” it continued.
Additionally, The Gori Law Firm and Simmons Hanly Conroy LLC were the top two filers of asbestos lawsuits in 2020. The Gori firm filed 594 asbestos cases, which was the most filed in the country but a decrease of 7.8 percent when compared to its 2019 filings. The Simmons firm filed 521 asbestos cases, which was an increase of 2.2 percent.
Local firms Napoli Shkolnik, Maune Raichle Hartley French & Mudd, SWMW Law, Shrader & Associates and Flint Law Firm also made the list of top asbestos filers.
Napoli primarily filed lung cancer cases in Madison County and New Castle, Del.
Flint Law Firm saw an 86.4 percent increase in its asbestos filings. The firm doubled the number of cases it filed in St. Clair County and tripled the cases filed in St. Louis.
In addition to case filings, the report analyzed individual defendants named in the asbestos lawsuits nationwide. In 2020, more than 11,000 defendant company entities were named in the complaints. There was an average of 67 entities named per complaint, with the highest number of defendants being 375 named on a single complaint.
Madison County saw an average of 58 defendants named in asbestos lawsuits; St. Clair County - 113 defendants; Cook Cook County - 61 defendants; and St. Louis - 72 defendants on average. The report states that the jurisdictions with the highest number of defendants, including St. Clair County, also saw some of the highest number of lung cancer filings.
The report states that of the complaints that include plaintiffs’ addresses, 64 percent of them live in a different state from where they filed their lawsuit.
“Given the high percentage of asbestos lawsuits filed in Madison County, it is not surprising that it is also the main forum in which out-of-state plaintiffs file,” the report states.
“Out of the plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit out of their state of residency, the majority (57%) filed their lawsuit in Madison County,” it continues.