DeLorean cars have asbestos? Courtesy of Class-Action Lawsuits

[Senatorpack@xxxx]

Does anyone know if the DeLorean had a significant amount of Asbestos 
used in the car, such as the heat shields, brakes, foam blocks in the 
fiberglass underbody and exhaust manifold gaskets?
There are new developments about asbestos that was primarily used in 
production automobiles from Europe and the USA back in the 1960s, 1970s and 
1980s.
If the DeLorean does have asbestos, what parts should be updated, and how 
should we proceed removing it?

I received an asbestos email from another car digest. The email goes into the 
car manufacturing industry as a whole, and some DeLorean suppliers that were 
sued over asbestos. I have copied it below for you to read.

<<There's an old saying in Detroit: "When the nation's economy catches cold, 
the auto industry comes down with pneumonia." But suppose the nation's auto 
industry, which is responsible for 6.6 million jobs nationwide and an annual 
payroll of $243 billion, came down with pneumonia first. What do you think 
would happen to the rest of the nation's economy?

Americans may soon find out. The nation's Big Three automakers are now under 
assault by a small army of lawyers who are pursuing a class-action suit over 
the past use of asbestos in cars. If they are successful, GM, Ford, and 
Chrysler will face billions of dollars in extra costs over the next 
decade--costs which will drive sticker prices up and sales figures down, and 
almost certainly result in tens of thousands of layoffs from high-paying jobs.

The asbestos lawyers, who include many of the nation's wealthiest attorneys, 
have already feasted on the remains of the nearly 50 major corporations 
they've driven into bankruptcy. Now, like lions on the prowl, they're moving 
on--looking for new prey.

While the initial wave of asbestos litigation in the 1970s concentrated on 
major asbestos manufacturers, the asbestos attorneys of 2002 are targeting 
companies who played no role in manufacturing or selling asbestos. And 
they're doing so by using thousands of plaintiffs who bear no symptoms of 
having a disease related to asbestos. 

The auto industry is a prime example of an industry being sued chiefly 
because it has deep pockets, even though it is highly cyclical and faces 
intense competition from overseas rivals. There's no doubt that the 
automakers and their parts suppliers used asbestos, a naturally occurring 
fiber whose heat-resistant qualities made it an excellent choice for brake 
pads and shoes, in addition to its familiar use as an all-purpose flame 
retardant. But they did so only after receiving assurances from asbestos 
manufacturers (and, in some cases, the government) that the material was safe 
for a particular application. 
The use of asbestos in manufacturing began to wane in the late 1970s when it 
was discovered that prolonged exposure to it could cause serious respiratory 
diseases, such as asbestosis. The plaintiffs' lawyers turned toward the Big 
Three automakers and other "innocent bystander" industries only after 
asbestos manufacturers, such as Johns Manville and W. R. Grace, sought 
sanctuary in bankruptcy court. "Anybody with asbestos products has a reason 
to be concerned," said Jim Zamoyski, a senior vice president with 
Federal-Mogul, a Southfield, Michigan, auto parts supplier that was sued into 
bankruptcy after acquiring companies that made asbestos brake linings. "Over 
the years, the first tier got wiped out. The second tier got wiped out. We're 
actually the third tier, and we got wiped out."

Curiously, there were few asbestos-brake cases filed against automakers by 
mechanics and other workers until the personal-injury lawyers began drumming 
up customers after Federal-Mogul filed for bankruptcy last October.

The lawyers' recruiting efforts produced swift results. In the last quarter 
of 2001, asbestos lawsuits against the Big Three automakers soared to more 
than 3,500 a month--about 20 times the rate for the first 9 months of the 
year. 

The growing threat was accentuated in February when a Manhattan jury returned 
a landmark $53 million verdict against GM, Ford, Chrysler, and several of 
their brake suppliers on behalf of a Maine man who was first exposed to 
asbestos as a brake specialist in 1968. It was the largest amount ever 
awarded to a single plaintiff in an asbestos suit.

All told, more than 20,000 lawsuits are pending against the Big Three, and 
thousands more are lined up for such leading brake manufacturers as Honeywell 
International, Delphi Corp., Dana Corp., and Bosch. 
Financial analysts estimate that the cost of defending such lawsuits could 
easily top $2 billion, providing extra incentive to defendants to settle out 
of court. 

"If these lawsuits go forward, you're looking at the era of the $30,000 
subcompact car," said an industry insider in Detroit. "Those potentially huge 
judgments will end up on the side-window stickers of new cars everywhere. In 
the very near future, consumers will pick up the tab--including the 30-40 
percent contingency fees that go to the lawyers."

Congress has attempted to limit asbestos liability on ten different occasions 
in the past two decades, but each time the personal-injury lawyers and their 
allies managed to scuttle the legislation. Congressional Democrats alone 
received $77 million from personal-injury lawyers in the 2000 election cycle. 

With legislative remedies unlikely, it's time for the judiciary itself to 
step forward and institute needed reforms. One who could set the example is 
Senior U.S. District Judge Charles Weiner, who oversees asbestos claims in 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Weiner has attempted to confine 
asbestos trials only to compensatory damages--the amount required to make 
plaintiffs whole--while keeping punitive-damage claims on hold.

"The idea is to make sure enough money is left at the end of the day to pay 
the claims of those actually injured by asbestos, rather than healthy people 
lumped into the class-actions by money-hungry lawyers. The sick and the 
dying, [and] their widows and survivors, should have their claims addressed 
first," he said. The nation's car buyers--and taxpayers--are likely to 
respond with a robust "amen.">>