Jury Finds Libby CARD Clinic Guilty of Filing False Asbestos Health Claims

The Center for Asbestos Related Disease, located in a small Montana mining town and current asbestos Superfund site, is now entangled in fraudulent asbestos health claims costing the government more than a million dollars. A federal jury ruled in late June that the CARD clinic in Libby, Montana, submitted 337 false asbestos claims that made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they should not have received. BNSF Railway filed a lawsuit against the clinic under the federal False Claims Act in 2019, alleging CARD failed to get outside confirmation that more than 300 patients had an asbestos-related disease such as mesothelioma, asbestosis or asbestos-related lung cancer.  The railroad company, owned by Warren Buffett, is a defendant in several lawsuits over its role in asbestos contamination that has affected thousands of residents. In 2020, the Montana Supreme Court found BNSF liable for shipping asbestos-contaminated vermiculite through Libby.  Libby was declared a Superfund site two decades ago. Cleanup continues at the site of the former vermiculite mine. BNSF Can Recover Compensation A seven-person jury determined CARD officials made false medical claims on behalf of patients. The railway could be eligible for 15% to 25% of any amount recovered by the government, according to The Associated Press. Attorneys for CARD argued the diagnoses were allowable under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.  “CARD was doing exactly what the...
Source: Asbestos and Mesothelioma News - Category: Environmental Health Authors: Tags: Asbestos Exposure Legal Source Type: news