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yes. that's right. it was the proliferation of costly lawsuits in recent decades which diminished the use of asbestos in the US.

companies are still trying to resolve all of these lawsuits.

what kind of incentives would need to be in place for a company to willingly put that lawsuit target on its own back?

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I've heard people argue that a much more effective way to do environmental regulation would be to basically not regulate and instead increase liability standards for environmental/health damage.

Right now, in many cases, if a factory is dumping toxic sludge into a river and they're within EPA limits, there's nothing anybody can do to stop it.

If you allowed farmers downstream to come after them for damaging crops (or whatever), or allowed class action suits against coal-burning power companies for cancer and such, imagine what that might do to incentive structures.

I'm not sure I buy it, but the asbestos case makes me wonder.

How would you prove which power plant produced the particular molecules that gave you cancer? What if the company that owns a power plant has gone bust? How does this help you deal with cancer? What if you die before you make it through the years and years such a court case would drag on?

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