The American compensation phenomenon

Our plain-English summary of The American compensation phenomenon, by A. Bale (International Journal of Health Services, 1990).

The study

• Author: A. Bale
• Journal: International Journal of Health Services
• Published: 1990;20(2):253-75
• Type of article: Review
• Cited by: 4 articles, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

Abstract

In this article, the author defines the occupational safety and health domain, characterizes the distinct compensation phenomenon in the United States, and briefly reviews important developments in the last decade involving Karen Silkwood, intentional torts, and asbestos litigation. He examines the class conflict over the value and meaning of work-related injuries and illnesses involved in the practical activity of making claims and turning them into money through compensation inquiries. Juries, attributions of fault, and medicolegal discourse play key roles in the compensation phenomenon. This article demonstrates the extensive, probing inquiry through workers' bodies constituted by the American compensation phenomenon into the moral basis of elements of the system of production.

In plain English

This article was a social policy essay, not a medical or scientific study. The author described what the article calls the "American compensation phenomenon": how U.S. workers turn work-related injuries and illnesses into money through workers' compensation claims and lawsuits. The author analyzed this as a form of class conflict. The author then reviewed legal developments of roughly the preceding decade, drawing on court decisions, books and press reports. These included the Karen Silkwood plutonium case, which produced a $10.55 million jury verdict (including $10 million in punitive damages), intentional tort suits against employers, and asbestos litigation. On asbestos, the article reported that by mid-1988 punitive damages awards had helped drive five asbestos companies into bankruptcy court and led to the liquidation of three others. New claims were being filed at a rate of perhaps 40 to 50 thousand a year. In August 1987 a Cleveland jury awarded $400,000 to a woman who developed mesothelioma while working in a federal office building. The author concluded that compensation litigation, though clearly limited as a way to make lasting change, can make a contribution. The author noted that the article did not look at employer victories or at workers who never receive compensation.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: Social policy essay with a narrative review of U.S. legal developments (court decisions, jury verdicts, settlements, legislation); not an empirical study
• Who was studied: No study population. The article discussed U.S. workers' compensation claims and lawsuits, mainly from the late 1970s to 1989, with brief mention of England and Australia
• Exposure: Not an exposure study. Cases discussed involved asbestos products (asbestos insulation products, Monokote insulation containing asbestos, a vermiculite mine owned by W.R. Grace), plutonium, benzene, vinyl chloride, beryllium, radon in uranium mines and 2,4-D, as well as workplace accidents
• Main results:
  • By mid-1988, punitive damages awards in asbestos cases had helped drive five asbestos companies into bankruptcy court and led to the liquidation of three others
  • 2,100 claims were filed in April 1987 with the Asbestos Claims Facility, up from about 1,000 claims at the end of 1985
  • New asbestos claims, helped by screening programs among groups such as sheet-metal and tire workers, were being filed at a rate of perhaps 40 to 50 thousand a year
  • In early 1987 Raymark (formerly Raybestos-Manhattan) agreed to a class action settlement with 17,000 plaintiffs for $46 million; in late 1987 a Delaware jury awarded $75 million in punitive damages against the company
  • In September 1987 a federal district court upheld a $6.8 million jury award ($2 million in punitive damages) against W.R. Grace for asbestos-containing Monokote insulation sold to Greenville, South Carolina, for its city hall
  • In August 1987 a Cleveland, Ohio, jury awarded $400,000 to a woman who acquired mesothelioma while working at the local federal office building; the author described this as possibly the first award to someone exposed as a building occupant
  • A 1980 California Supreme Court decision allowed a suit against Johns-Manville for its plant doctors' concealment of asbestosis in a man who worked 29 years in the asbestos plant and died of lung cancer
  • In 1982 a federal appeals court upheld compensatory and punitive damages awards against asbestos suppliers and Celotex for intentional torts against workers at the Philip Carey plant in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania; the author stated this was the only court to have approved an intentional tort verdict for deliberate asbestos exposure
  • In the Karen Silkwood case, a 1979 Oklahoma City jury returned a $10.55 million verdict against Kerr-McGee, including $10 million in punitive damages; the case was settled in 1986 for $1.38 million
• The authors' conclusion: The author concluded that compensation litigation is clearly limited as a way to make lasting changes in the structure of power in the workplace or the state. In the author's view, it can still make a contribution, can be part of broader social movements, and is a permanent part of the American scene
• Limitations the authors state:
  • The author stated that the article did not look at the difficulties capital has created in compensation systems for workers, at the many employer victories, or at workers and families who never receive money or justice

Topics

Medical terms in this study, explained in our Lexicon: Tort, Attribution.

Related studies

• "Hope in another direction": compensation for work-related illness among women, 1900-1960--Part II — A. Bale (1989)
• The cost of compensating asbestos victims under the Occupational Disease Compensation Act of 1983 — F.B. Siskind (1987)
• Asbestos disease and compensation — R.E. Sweeney, B. Castleman (1979)
• Causation and financial compensation — P. Kotin (1986)
• Approach to asbestos worker compensation plan alleged to be flawed — K.T. Kelsey, D.C. Christiani (1985)
• Proper compensation for the damaged worker — J.A. Adam (1979)

Browse more research in International Journal of Health Services, or return to medical research.