West Virginia Code 55-7I-1 – Findings and purpose
(a) The West Virginia Legislature finds that:
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 55-7I-1
- Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
- Successor: means a corporation that assumes or incurs, or has assumed or incurred, successor asbestos-related liabilities. See West Virginia Code 55-7I-2
(1) Asbestos-related claims threaten the continued viability of uniquely situated companies that have never manufactured, sold or distributed asbestos or asbestos products and are liable only as successor corporations.
(2) The viability of these businesses is threatened due solely to their status as successor corporations by merger or consolidation based on actions taken prior to the May 13, 1968, American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists change in the recommended, longstanding threshold workplace-exposure limit for asbestos.
(3) More than twenty other states have enacted legislation similar to this article to provide limits on asbestos-related liabilities for innocent successors.
(4) The public interest as a whole is best served by providing relief to innocent successors so that they may remain viable.
(b) The purpose of this article is to limit the cumulative recovery by all asbestos claimants from innocent successors.