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• STRASSEL: Trusts Busted ($$) 

Harry Kananian died in the year 2000 of mesothelioma -- a cancer almost always caused by asbestos. But the legacy that may survive him is the role he is posthumously playing in exposing evidence of asbestos litigation fraud.

In early 2000, the Ohio resident met with the law firm of Early, Ludwick, Sweeney & Strauss to see about collecting compensation from special trusts set up by companies to deal with asbestos liabilities. . . .

In the legal trade, this is known as "double dipping" -- the process by which lawyers file claims at many different bankruptcy trusts on behalf of a single plaintiff. Each trust is told a different story about how the client got sick, and the plaintiff collects from all of them. Of course, the lawyers collect too. This practice may well have remained unexposed had not Brayton Purcell decided to cash in on Kananian one more time. It sued Lorillard Tobacco, this time claiming its client had become sick from smoking Kent cigarettes, whose filters contained asbestos for several years in the 1950s. That suit has now exploded on Brayton, exposing one of the asbestos bar's more lucrative cash cows.

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