Texan Helps Injured Workers : Lawyer Is ‘King of Asbestos Litigation’

Medical records stuffed in boxes, in file cabinets and piled on the floor make the asbestos unit of Walter Umphrey’s law firm look more like a doctor’s office.

But the extensive filing system is vital to Umphrey, who has represented more than 4,500 people in lawsuits alleging that they were exposed to asbestos on their jobs and suffered subsequent shortness of breath and cancer.

Umphrey, 52, has earned a reputation as the “king of asbestos litigation” in the United States. In the process, he has won hundreds of thousands of dollars for victims and earned more than $100 million for himself.

“If you have any kind of a claim that has any kind of legitimacy to it, he will dedicate all of his manpower and resources behind it to the conclusion, either right or wrong,” says Ken Bailey, an asbestos expert in Umphrey’s firm, Umphrey, Swearingen and Eddings.

Umphrey’s law practice in southeast Texas near Beaumont is deep in the heart of one of the nation’s foremost manufacturing areas. The so-called Golden Triangle area is peppered with oil refineries and chemical plants.

Umphrey entered asbestos litigation in 1974 when one of his law partner’s relatives was diagnosed as having asbestosis, a respiratory disease caused by exposure to asbestos dust or fibers. Umphrey was already a successful personal injury lawyer who represented many local union employees.

He spent the next six months working on nothing but asbestos. He says his team of 17 attorneys is so expert that it can file dozens of asbestos cases at the same time. The asbestos cases have become the “bread and butter” of his law firm, he says.

In Borel vs. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. in 1973, the federal court opened the way for asbestos litigation. That decision questioned whether the dangers of asbestos were foreseeable to the manufacturer. It was left to the jury to decide.

Umphrey’s business has snowballed. His name and law practice are familiar to workers at every refinery in the area. A person must only fill out a medical form in Umphrey’s law office to be referred to a doctor for screening.

If an asbestos problem exists, the person is referred to a pulmonary specialist who performs more tests. If the specialist finds a lung problem from asbestos, Umphrey takes the case.

When Umphrey takes an asbestos case, he never loses. Most of his clients settle, but the ones who have gone to court have always won jury awards.

Umphrey and Wayne Reaud, a Beaumont asbestos attorney who also has never lost a case, have joined in a class-action asbestos suit before U.S. District Judge Robert Parker beginning in March.

The 25-day trial of a 1986 Umphrey class-action suit, Jenkins vs. Raymark Industries Inc., turned into a model for nationwide asbestos litigation.

Umphrey represented 741 insulators, pipe fitters and housewives in the Jenkins class-action suit and has filed about 1,300 suits since the $130-million Jenkins settlement. The most any one plaintiff won in the Jenkins suit was $800,000.

Umphrey says the asbestos companies deserve everything coming to them.

“The nature of the disease is progressive,” Umphrey says. “It’s like being pregnant. Once you get it, there’s no remedy. There’s no medical cure.”

Umphrey has received hundreds of letters from people who were helped by his lawsuits. Some of his prescribed screenings were actually able to detect cancer in its early stages and save the lives of workers.

“If it was not for Walter Umphrey or myself, these people would be dead and their widows would not be compensated one red cent,” Reaud says.