Tobacco.org

Lincoln No-Accord Stance Avoids Tobacco-Sized Awards (Update1) 

Lincoln Electric Holdings Inc., the world's largest welding-equipment maker, has escaped the fate of tobacco and asbestos producers by scoring upset victories over trial lawyers claiming its products caused symptoms resembling Parkinson's disease.

Workers' attorneys won only 3 of 15,000 cases filed this decade after predicting litigation would bankrupt the industry. New suits against 12 welding-products makers fell from 9,510 in 2003 to 57 last year, said John Beisner, a lawyer for the companies. Lincoln was named in most of the cases.

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