Not Just a Local Firm - Cullen and Dykman Represents Clients in 85,000 Asbestos Claims Pending in Over 30 States
The Firm was retained to defend a pump company that had been sued in a single asbestos-related lawsuit in New York City. As with many defendants, the pump company’s liability profile changed dramatically from the late 1990s into the mid-2000’s time frame. In fact, by the mid-2000 time period, the pump company was a defendant in approximately 9,000 cases in New York City alone. During this transition period, our Firm was retained to play a larger role in defending asbestos lawsuits. We assumed the defense of the company in the following additional jurisdictions: the Eastern portion of Upstate New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the thousands of cases venued in Federal Court in Philadelphia. Concurrently, our firm assumed the role of National Coordinating Counsel to administer a national caseload of approximately 85,000 claims pending in over 30 states (including Massachusetts and New Hampshire). In our role as National Coordinating Counsel for this pump company, we have been able to reduce their indemnity and defense costs by (1) handling settlement negotiations with “national” plaintiffs firms and resolving blocks of cases (in multiple jurisdictions) at a reduced price per case, with minimal defense costs; (2) assigning experienced trial counsel to those jurisdictions where we knew of the activity of plaintiffs’ national trial counsel; and (3) developing a data bank accessible to all local counsel that included trial transcripts, the latest information on expert witnesses, and access to discovery responses served in all jurisdictions.