Today, the Illinois Supreme Court took a significant step toward bringing some common sense to the asbestos litigation quagmire that's bogging down our court system.

It has been decades since asbestos was manufactured in this country, yet asbestos exposure litigation continues to be a mainstay of the plaintiffs' bar. Tort lawyers are engaged in a never-ending search for new classes of plaintiffs who are more and more removed from the actual asbestos exposure. Asbestos litigators have also pushed for creative and unfair rules that allow them to convert weak claims into sledgehammers to pressure defendants to settle.

One such clever legal tactic has been to use the so-called "Lipke rule" to prevent defendants from showing juries that the defendant may not have caused the plaintiffs' injury. Denied the reasonable opportunity to prove that they weren’t responsible for the plaintiff's injuries, defendants were often forced to settle.

But today, the Illinois Supreme Court joined the mainstream of courts and said that defendants do have a right to present evidence that bears on causation. The Court relied on many of the arguments advanced by NCLC in its amicus brief in Nolan v. Weil-McLain.

You can check out the decision at NCLC’s website.