Summit County is looking for a few good heirs.
The county’s Probate Court has a pot of about $2 million to disburse to the heirs of hundreds of rubber workers who died or became seriously ill because of exposure to asbestos.
In the past year, many, but not all, of the heirs of deceased rubber workers with pending asbestos claims have been found. The court will have hearings Tuesday and Wednesday this week with more potential heirs to determine whether they are eligible for an award and, if so, how much.
The court also has posted a list on its website of about 850 deceased rubber workers whose heirs haven’t been found.
The heirs can be the rubber workers’ surviving spouse, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews or cousins.
“Our goal is to get the money to as many heirs as possible or to the injured workers,” said Joe Bena of Bevan & Associates, a local law firm specializing in asbestos litigation.
Lengthy litigation
In the longest-lasting mass tort in U.S. history, scores of damage related claims were filed in the 1980s and 1990s by rubber workers, boilermakers and other laborers from Akron’s major tire and engineering companies.
Settlement payouts are no longer under legal challenge, and the objective now is locating relatives of the deceased workers to finalize the paperwork needed to distribute the money.
A fund totaling $80 million was set up in 2004 after insurance giant Travelers Cos. reached a settlement with attorneys representing tens of thousands of U.S. employees who had filed asbestos-related claims. Travelers insured Johns Manville Corp. of Denver — the largest U.S. manufacturer of asbestos-containing products for more than half a century.
A lengthy series of appeals delayed payouts until the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court in New York, where claims were consolidated, ordered Travelers in the summer of 2014 to pay up.
Across the country, 19,000 cases are being paid from the settlement. Bevan & Associates and the three firms it works with are handling about 12,000 of these claims. Summit County has the largest number of cases, with about 6,000.
Damage claims range from $2,100 to $23,000 based on medical diagnoses for various asbestos-related illnesses.
Hunting for heirs
Bevan & Associates, a Boston Heights-based law firm that helped fight the asbestos litigation, now has the happier task of helping determine who’s owed money.
“After a long fight, we finally created a pot of money,” attorney Tom Bevan said. “Unfortunately, so much time passed, we have been unable to locate heirs.”
The law firm filed about 1,700 cases in probate court last year involving rubber workers who had died and whose heirs couldn’t immediately be found. This bought the firm time to try to locate surviving descendants.
If the attorneys had an address for the rubber workers or their family members, they sent them a letter. They did online searches and attempted to reach them by phone.
They even hired a private investigator, Advanced Surveillance Group Inc., based in Clinton Township, Mich., about 45 minutes northeast of Detroit.
Dan Klimek, the firm’s investigations manager, said finding the heirs has been a nice change of pace for his company, which often is tasked with locating people who don’t want to be found.
“These are much more pleasant,” he said.
Klimek said some potential heirs have been skeptical, thinking that the settlement was a scam.
He said some relatives were unaware that their loved one had filed an asbestos claim. Suspicious potential heirs were given the Bevan & Associates’ phone number to verify the authenticity of the claims.
“‘No, we’re not in Nigeria,’” Klimek said his employees told several skeptics.
An initial round of hearings with prospective heirs was held in probate court last June.
“They were happy this was being acknowledged,” Summit County Probate Court Judge Elinore Marsh Stormer said of the heirs.
Bevan & Associates recently sent notices to possible heirs in 430 pending probate cases for hearings that will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday. Additional hearings are planned for mid-May.
The hearings will help to iron out disputes between heirs who think they are owed money or to settle questions over how much they are owed.
Future efforts
Heirs have been found in about half of the pending probate cases in Summit County.
“We still have a long ways to go,” Bevan said.
The attorneys estimate about $2 million is still up for grabs, owed to heirs who have not yet been found.
The court recently put a list of rubber workers with unknown heirs on its website, hoping this will help to track down more people.
If funds are left over, Stormer said a trust may be established, with payouts made to heirs who are later found or step forward.
“The best news would be that there is none — that everyone has been paid what they can be paid,” the judge said.
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at 330-996-3705 or swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @swarsmithabj and on Facebook: www.facebook.com/swarsmith.